当你登上一艘船员人数远比你多的船时,游戏用了一种很巧妙的抽象手法将它表现出来:你不会直面超过引擎承载能力的大量敌人,而是会遇到比你高好几级的强力敌人。这是一个很好的设计,尽管使得新手产生困惑。
海战则完全不同。它可能让你感觉非常缓慢笨重(提示:点击“+”按钮可以加快游戏速度),但和剑战相比,海战非常依赖角色的技能。使用普通的加农炮弹会造成全方位的伤害,使用葡萄弹可以对船体造成更大的伤害,链弹主要对船帆造成伤害,炸药负责让船只起火。不论你的海战风格如何,这些弹药都有各自的用途,你可以命令一整支舰队加入战斗,所以你不会总是深陷绝境。
适当预警:这一系列的俄罗斯风格非常明显。过时的画面,平庸的叙事,没有指引,在某些方面强调游戏的“逼真”,非常晦涩的机制和任务,任务中有类似送货的简单任务,也有相当于在整个加勒比海找一滴墨水的荒唐任务。
A nice abstraction when boarding a crew that heavily outnumbers you: instead of facing vast numbers beyond the engine's capacity, you instead face very tough opponents who are several levels ahead of you. A nice touch, if a bit perplexing to new players.
Sea combat is an entirely different beast. It might seem slow and ponderous (hint: the + button speeds up the game) but is far more character-skill dependent than fencing. You get regular cannonballs for all-round damage, grapeshots for greater hull damage, chain-shot for sail damage and explosives for setting ships on fire. All of them have their uses, no matter your style of ship fighting. You can also command a fleet of ships into battle, so you won't always face utterly terrible odds.
Due warning, this series is as Russian as they get. Outdated graphics, indifferent writing, no hand-holding, an emphasis on certain aspects of “realism”, extremely obscure mechanics and quests that run the gamut from simple “FEDEX quests” to utterly crazy gigs that are the equivalent of looking for an ink-drop in the entire goddamn Caribbean waters.
对新人玩家来说,这些缺点都让人望而却步。即使你已经玩了几百个小时,在完成某些特殊任务时你仍需要攻略协助,包括最后一个任务。
另一方面来说,他们为玩家提供了一段迷人的开放世界体验,类似于《骑马与砍杀(Mount & Blade,2008)》,你很明显能够见证你的角色从一只旱鸭子一步步成为一只海狗,一位剑术大师,等等。游戏中有很多 RPG 元素,包括创建角色,为不同派系效力,拥有可持续的经济来源。忘记类似在《席德梅尔的海盗》中追求总督女儿的经历吧,在这里,你可以成为总督,前提是你要先接管一个殖民地,祝你好运。
因为这一系列的游戏比较相似,很难从中选出最好的一作。而且每一作都有一到两个专属的大型 mod,所以该系列的体量非常庞大。比较好的作品有《海狗:各得其所》(最新一作,有不错的剧情和更精细的画质)和带有《新地平线(New Horizon)》mod(免费游玩,包含大量内容和选择)的《加勒比海盗》。选择一款游戏,开始你的航海冒险旅程吧。
It's all very daunting to newcomers. Even if you spend hundreds of hours playing, you'll probably still need a walkthrough to complete some of the more unique quests, especially the endgame ones.
On the other hand, they offer an amazingly open experience, similar to Mount & Blade (2008), and you can definitely see your character progress from landlubber to sea dog, master fencer, etc. There's a lot of RPG here, from choosing your character's initial build, to working for different factions, to getting a sustainable economy going. Forget wooing the governor's daughter like in Sid Meier's Pirates. Here you can BE the governor.
But you gotta take over the colony first. Good luck.
Since the games are all very similar, it's hard to point out which is the best one. Furthermore, every entry in the series has one or two big exclusive mods, so the community is quite fractured. Good starting points are Sea Dogs: To Each His Own (the latest entry, has a good story and better graphics) and Pirates of the Caribbean with the New Horizons mod (huge amount of content and options for free play). Just pick one and set sail into a life of adventures.
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2 译者注:即力量(Power)、洞察(Insight)、反应(Reaction)、权威(Authority)、天赋(Talent)、耐力(Endurance)和成功(Success)。