Xbox 360
Some games these days are little more than tech-demos, flashy examples of modern graphics and sound designed to make even the most powerful systems cough and splutter. These usually have about as much gameplay quality as a Connect 4 set with all the counters missing.
Other games throw technology to the wind and focus on fun, sure your granddads’ toes look more appealing but they're usually enjoyable enough to guarantee hours of addiction.
Pirates: Duel on the High Seas (or PDHS if you want to make it sound like an illness) achieves neither of these and sails a broad course between dull to look at and dull to play with, it's the arranged marriage of your nightmares.
You play as a tiny pirate vessel out to steal booty, find keys, collect beards (seriously) and wipe out every last ship on the seven seas; playing from a top down perspective, navigating your boat from bland river to bland river. Indeed contrary to the games title, none of the game actually takes place on the 'high seas'.
The controls are simple, one button to go forward, another to eh… reverse your sail ship (with the d-pad to turn), and another for your cannon balls. Pick up weapons take up a fourth button, that's it, that's the game; navigate through dull canals turning the ship to shoot at waves of uninteresting ships. Occasionally a downed enemy will leave a crewmember floating around who you can pick up and use to boost guns, speed, healing and your maps draw distance. Despite having potential to really give the game depth they don't make much difference in the long run. You can't upgrade your ship, but then again you won't really need to, despite its small size it can take pretty much anything the game throws at it. Get hurt too much? Just fall back and recharge, yes Halo's health bar for dummies apparently now applies to galleons as well.
Diversity isn't really this games strong point. To be fair you'll travel the seven seas in search of some cursed keys, unfortunately in the world of PDHS each different sea seems to be denoted by a slightly different shade of brown, not exactly a feast for the eyes. The enemies themselves have a few different models, but rarely do anything fancy. Half of them sail around so fast you'll spend ages chasing the bastards down in a manner so devoid of fun you'd have a more enjoyable time playing football with a brick.
This really isn't much of a game; it could easily have been on the original gameboy and have played pretty much the same. It's clear that at some point one or two developers loved something about this game, it does have a cute kooky feel in the cut-scenes, that borders on likeable but it doesn't stop the game from being blander than a ryvieta sandwich. Take your booty elsewhere!
