Captain Blood Preview: Errol Flynn He Ain’t — But He’ll Do
The popularity of pirates is waning as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise gives way to Twilight and Harry Potter – but Captain Blood aims to cash in on the tail end of the pirate craze.
Loosely based on the Rafael Sabatini books that spawned an Errol Flynn movie and possibly a 2011 remake by director Phillip Noyce, Captain Blood follows the adventures of a doctor sold into slavery who later becomes a pirate. Developer SeaWolf picks up the story between the time when Captain Blood is no longer a slave and the time when he settles down with Olivia de Havilland.
What Is It?
Captain Blood is an action-adventure game for the Xbox 360 and PC. Players navigate Blood through linear levels on foot and through open water in his ship, the Arabella. The on-foot parts involve hacking and slashing rival pirates with a series of cutlass combos and occasionally shooting them with stolen pistols or muskets. The open water parts involve aiming cannons at attacking ships and clearing the deck of rival pirates that manage to board.
What We Saw
I played one boss fight about five times without being able to beat it and then quit out to the main menu to play a boat level where the goal is to sink four or five attacking ships.
How Far Along Is It?
Captain Blood is due out this winter. Publisher 1C says the game is still in alpha and there are some significant changes to gameplay in the works. It looks like the major gameplay elements are in place and the graphics look a lot further along than alpha.
What Needs Improvement?
Hack, Hack, Slash, Slash, Rinse, Wash, Repeat: A lot of hack ‘n’ slash games get a little repetitive and Captain Blood is no exception. Part of that comes from the weapons Blood had on him during that boss fight; as you progress through the game, you’re supposed to be buying better and better weapons which can be upgraded for more combos. Unfortunately, Blood only had the one cutlass with him and just two combos that never quite seemed to do enough damage. Worse, a lot of the animations repeated themselves during the boss fight – like a mini cut scene where the boss pulls a weapon out of his treasure chest.
Blood Falls Backwards: During the boss fight, the bad guy pirate would lob firebombs at Captain Blood. Whenever he’d get hit by the fire, Blood’s injury animation would cause him to fall backward into the fire. This would cause him more damage and he’d keep falling backward deeper and deeper into the flames until he died or the fire went out. I hope this is one of those “significant” gameplay changes the developer is still working on.
Rage Mode Doesn’t Do Much: There’s a special Rage Mode that the player can trigger with the right bumper which supposedly makes Captain Blood do more damage. All it did for me was turn the edges of the screen white and fuzzy and make the controller vibrate.
You Can’t Control The Camera. Ever: Boo!
What Should Stay The Same?
The Boat Levels: It certainly sounds repetitive to run back and forth across the Arabella’s deck, trying to get to different cannons to fire on enemy ships. However, because the firing of the cannon requires actual skill, it’s pretty exciting. Each cannon has a limited range of side-to-side movement and its arced trajectory is realistic. A misfired shot might go over an enemy ship to land harmlessly in the ocean on the other side, or it might graze the sails and render the enemy ship sluggish in the water. Distance and timing are key in this part of the game. Small, fast ships can zigzag up to or circle in on the Arabella and rake her while dropping off boarding parties. In the time it takes them to get there, they rarely present a target for more than a few seconds. Even when they do, it can take Captain Blood a long time to get from one side of his ship to the other what with all the deck clutter and frantic crew members in the way.
The Graphics: The colours in Captain Blood were pretty vibrant and the water looked amazing. Surprisingly, the environments reduced the repetitive feel of the gameplay – and since you spend about half the game on a boat or near a boat, water appearance is all-important.
Dodge Roll: It’s mapped to the right stick which is really helpful for getting out of bad melee situations and fire that you might fall backwards into.
Quick Time Events: I actually don’t mind them in Captain Blood, perhaps because they’re not necessarily required for boss fights or opening doors. If the captain gets knocked off a ledge or a cliff, he’ll grab onto the edge and a QTE will determine whether or not you succeed in climbing back up – but the timing is forgiving. Also, instead of just mashing a button over and over again to encourage Captain Blood to try harder when climbing up the side of a cliff face, the sly dog will do cool things like parry a cutlass slash or grab a guy’s leg and fling him over the side as he climbs up, making the whole QTE both useful in thinning out mobs and way more entertaining.
Final Thoughts
Captain Blood reminds me a lot of THQ’s Conan from 2007 – it’s a simple action adventure game based on a popular (if way-old) book series. Oddly, Captain Blood is less bloody than Conan; but it still has this over-the-top violence that makes the linear levels feel more fun. So it’s like the pirate flavour of a game that was based on a book which was the barbarian flavor of Sabatini’s pirate adventures. Awesome. Go check out that Errol Flynn version if you haven’t already.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@MitchellAnius: But there's already been one.
shirty
@sentroshi:
It was a very strange game, there were two identical races of completely stupid soldiers that had more than a passing resemblance to a certain guvinator:
[www.youtube.com]
GodOfWar and Pirates of the Caribean had an offspring. THIS!!!
Well I hate just about everything I see. God of War rip off, which is getting REALLY stale at this point. The art style is Gears of War meets Pirates of the Caribbean Online (big bulky dudes and cartoonish enemies? umm...ok) and the gameplay looks really really REALLY boring. Give me another title as good as the first Pirates of the Caribbean...you know, the one that didn't really have dick to do with the films and was released by Bethesda. It had it's rough patches, and it needed a bit more time in the pot, but it had the basic concept perfected. I don't need every game I play to be nonstop balls to the wall action. Sometimes I like to enjoy the atmosphere of the setting.
jargy1
Why does the footage look like it was taken from a cell phone camera? lol
Yeah, it definitely shows shades of Conan, but some of us enjoy mindless action-adventure or hacknslash games (I enjoy Dynasty Warriors), so this could be fun.
Rather have a remake of Sid Meyers Pirates, thank you very much.
MitchellAnius
@TetsuBo: Turns out I missed that PotC MMO that does in fact exist.
So yeah.. nevermind what I said. :)
@Pirates of the Burning Sea, and I think that's what Kamakazie was referring to.
It did suck, but it was not PotC or Disney related.
@dirtface: Agreed.
I'm with him on this one though, the only people into that pirate craze were the same people into harry potter and ninjas.
Sheep.
Blore07
@Chances: I hear there's a pretty big pirate craze in Somalia.
Alright me hearties, follow me!
The character looks like what I had by the end of Fable 2, lol.
@K1NG EV1L: i think theres a pirates of the caribbean action/rpg coming at some point...yup, heres a link
[xbox360.ign.com]
undeadmachine
god of war but with pirates! and whats up with the dude that looked like the main character from Prince of Persia
@CatPope:
Yeah, that doctor has biceps that'd give Chris Redfield a run for his money...
Blah8
Looks good to me, but I don't understand why the main character is using that Kratos-looking / Ancient Grecian-looking xiphos-style sword.
What's wrong with cutlasses?
dirtface
@ShadowOdin isn't american: You sure are into yourself.
dirtface
@Weirdwolf is MMMEELLLTTTING!!:
Wow. Was that an alien from AVP?
Damn. One of my favorite movies, and one I never expected to be made into a game...
...but not a game that looks particularly good. I'll at least rent it on principle though.
WeaselRFU
Is this the same devs that did Conan?
I thought that game was pretty awesome.
Half of that probably came from the fact it was Conan though...
bloog
That man is a Doctor?!?!
Damn, times have changed. He could probably beat the hypertension out of me.
@TexanBoy: I enjoy Depp. I have liked all the characters he has played. He is an excellent actor.
That should be enough.
I am sure Errol Flynn is good too; we internets-people don't need to turn everything into a competition, do we?
@Neo Deus: Actually, I dislike plenty of unpopular things as well. Only Depp movie I enjoy is Ed Wood.
And by the way, he won't leave the impact Errol Flynn left on the industry, look up the terms "duck, string, fat, and Errol Flynn" on Google and see what comes up.
At last a PC game worthy to be interested on for a looooong time.
So is Blizzard letting WoW players switch their characters into other games, too? That guy looks a hell of a lot like my human rogue.
@Chances: No, no there was not.
Sure, a few pirate games came out around that time, but that's coincidental, as the occasional pirate game is always coming out. PotC was popular, but there really hasn't been a craze due to it at all.
nworobes
@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: Shhh, haven't you heard? It's cool to hate on popular things.
@Kamakazie: Did it? Wow, that really slipped under my radar (probably for the better). A shame; such wasted potential, but I guess Disney's games are usually good at that.
@ShadowOdin isn't american: I was sure you had written something completely different.
I need sleep it seems.
@TexanBoy: Johnny Depp just played a brain-drunk outlaw during the age of pirates.
Which was amusing at least.
For entertainment purposes, whats wrong with that?
Damn for a second I thought we were getting a remake of the weird exploration/linguistic game from the 80's
+ Watch video
@elmorepow: It's connected to the TV. Have you checked there? Usually where I leave mine.
Except when I use it for barbecues.
@Neo Deus: It came out two years ago. It sucked.
Kamakazie
@TexanBoy: HAH! I knew who he was when I was 15.
Which isn't an accomplishment in any way.
This is just one of the few bits of trivia of myself that I am leaving on the internet so that my decendants can piece together my biography from.
Where's my PS3 release?
elmorepow
@TexanBoy: As long as I'm here, I'm going to assume I'm one of the very few 19 year olds on here who even know who Errol Flynn is, much less is a fan of his movies beyond Robin Hood...
Looks like shit. The hero (like them all lately) is way too damn bulky the gameplay moments look like crap and generally bad graphics. Also "a new classic"? What morons. The Pirates of the Caribbean game sucked ass anyway.
Beyond the three movies, was there really a pirate craze?
beautiful screenshots ... they kinda remind me of Buccaneer's Den from the last Ultima.
Bedlam
Wasn't there supposed to be a PotC MMO? I was really looking forward to that, but it seems to have sailed off to World's End.
@Ursus-Veritas: I like your thinking.
Wow, a hack and slash involving ferocious weapons and a buff male character.
My testosterone is guzzling.
Please let there be a secret mode where we unlock a space marine-suit for him to wear.
Were it not for the beautiful vistas I would've filed it under M, for generic.
Now you might say "Hey 'ShadowOdin isn't american', Generic isn't spelled with M"
To which I will reply "Ur momma" and then explain that the M stands for 'Modern day Japanimation'
Thus: Generic
Errol Flynn made a great pirate, none of that namby pamby Johnny Depp crap either.
Captain Blood is an amazing book, awesome movie, and hopefully a great game.
Go rent the movie, you won't regret it. And get The Sea Hawk while you're at it.
@Michael Dukakis the stunned yet hopeful Mets fan: I think it had something to do with Ninjas?
I'm not sure though.
Looks like god of war, can't there be a pirate game that's an RPG and not a hack and slash?
K1NG EV1L
I never got the interest in pirates.