Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Pirate's: Hunt for Blackbeard's Booty
Mini-game mash ups are a common thing on the Wii, and it's safe to say that Blackbeard's Booty falls into that category. However, Blackbeard's Booty tries to create its own genre; the mini game of mini-games.
How is this possible you say? Well, Blackbeard offers five different games to choose from and that is it. Available right from the get go are Sword Fighting, Row Row Row for Your Life, Treasure Hunters, Winds of the Wavy Sea, and Squidball Sabotage.
The game is composed of two modes: Adventure and Trophy. In Adventure, you "explore" one area for treasure via playing the five mini-games. After beating the mini-games, you unlock a new area of the map, where you will commence to play the same games again. Rinse and repeat.
You and up to three friends can compete or cooperate to win trophies in each of these five events. I suppose this sheer lack of gaming diversity could be forgiven if the games were absolutely stellar, but let's put that idea to rest.
In the sword fight game you have three basic moves (powerful, standard, and quick) that are performed by swinging the Wii remote top to bottom, right to left, and forward respectively. Pressing B blocks and shaking the Wii remote and nunchuck simultaneously will tag your partner in.
Tagging is important because attacking drains your stamina bar and will cause your character to collapse. Each team of two has one hundred coins between them, and getting hit drains your coins (basically HP). The first team to deplete the coins of their opponents wins.
If you've continued to read this far (bless you) the setup may sound fun. Sadly, thanks to a terrible gesture recognition system, sword fighting in Blackbeard's Booty is a random mess. Ninety percent of swings register as something completely different than the one intended, resulting in nothing more than a waggle fest. Simply waggle your Wii remote for a minute, tag your teammate for stamina purposes, and waggle for another minute and you've won.
The Row for Your Life event works better than sword fighting, but still isn't a very fun experience. In Row for Your Life, teams of two race two laps around an aquatic course and whoever has the most treasure at the end wins. One teammate steers the boat, while the other shoots.
To steer, shake the nunchuck to go left, the Wii remote to go right, and both to speed up. The shooter points with their icon and presses B to fire. A team can acquire coins by rowing over a treasure chest or shooting an opponent's vessel. Taking fire and falling too far behind will cause a Mama Squid to attack your boat and take more coins.
Treasure Hunters plays on a Bomberman like field where one team is offense (trying to collect treasure and bring it back to base) and the other team plays defense (trying to knock their opponents out.) There's nothing complex to it, but at the same time there's nothing fun.
In Winds of the Wavy Sea, you play a top down free for all version of capture the flag. Your remote's cursor is a fan, and placing it behind your sail moves it in your desired direction. Just grab treasure and bring it back to your base for points. You can also steal treasure from a ship by shooting it with your cannon.
Finally there's Squidball Sabotage, a squid-laden version of croquet. Played like golf in Wii Sports, Squidball is about lining up a shot, pressing A, and swinging with a desired amount of force. Sending your squid through the sixteen arches will make it poisonous to other squids. Once poisoned, hit the opposing squid to kill them, and the last squid standing wins. If you bump into a squid before being poisoned, you can shoot that squid from a cannon and away from their next designated arch.
Needless to say, none of the games in Blackbeard's Booty are fun or interesting. The game's other mode (Trophy Mode) plays almost exactly like Adventure Mode. Simply select an area that you have beat in Adventure Mode and play through that area's games. The only difference between Adventure and Trophy mode is that you can choose the order of games in Adventure, and the games are pre-chosen in Trophy. That is it.
Winning events will reward you points where you can buy accessories in the game's store. These range from different swords to new sails, all of which are different for cosmetic purposes and offer no strategic advantages.
The graphics of Blackbeard's Booty (go crazy on the boards with that) are nothing to brag about. The uninspired graphics of the game further dampen the experience that the poor gameplay started. To further add to the complaint pile, frequent load screens approaching fifteen seconds appear between games.
Speaking of aggravating features, the game's dialogue strives to be as cheesy as possible. The wittiest thing to come out in pirate talk is "Arrr, I likes big booty, and I cannot lie." Sound lame? Well that's as clever as it gets. Think of how cool Johnny Depp made pirate lingo. Now picture the other end of the pirate talk rainbow. That lame, annoying end of the spectrum is where Blackbeard's Booty lie.
©2009-02-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How is this possible you say? Well, Blackbeard offers five different games to choose from and that is it. Available right from the get go are Sword Fighting, Row Row Row for Your Life, Treasure Hunters, Winds of the Wavy Sea, and Squidball Sabotage.
The game is composed of two modes: Adventure and Trophy. In Adventure, you "explore" one area for treasure via playing the five mini-games. After beating the mini-games, you unlock a new area of the map, where you will commence to play the same games again. Rinse and repeat.
You and up to three friends can compete or cooperate to win trophies in each of these five events. I suppose this sheer lack of gaming diversity could be forgiven if the games were absolutely stellar, but let's put that idea to rest.
In the sword fight game you have three basic moves (powerful, standard, and quick) that are performed by swinging the Wii remote top to bottom, right to left, and forward respectively. Pressing B blocks and shaking the Wii remote and nunchuck simultaneously will tag your partner in.
Tagging is important because attacking drains your stamina bar and will cause your character to collapse. Each team of two has one hundred coins between them, and getting hit drains your coins (basically HP). The first team to deplete the coins of their opponents wins.
If you've continued to read this far (bless you) the setup may sound fun. Sadly, thanks to a terrible gesture recognition system, sword fighting in Blackbeard's Booty is a random mess. Ninety percent of swings register as something completely different than the one intended, resulting in nothing more than a waggle fest. Simply waggle your Wii remote for a minute, tag your teammate for stamina purposes, and waggle for another minute and you've won.
The Row for Your Life event works better than sword fighting, but still isn't a very fun experience. In Row for Your Life, teams of two race two laps around an aquatic course and whoever has the most treasure at the end wins. One teammate steers the boat, while the other shoots.
To steer, shake the nunchuck to go left, the Wii remote to go right, and both to speed up. The shooter points with their icon and presses B to fire. A team can acquire coins by rowing over a treasure chest or shooting an opponent's vessel. Taking fire and falling too far behind will cause a Mama Squid to attack your boat and take more coins.
Treasure Hunters plays on a Bomberman like field where one team is offense (trying to collect treasure and bring it back to base) and the other team plays defense (trying to knock their opponents out.) There's nothing complex to it, but at the same time there's nothing fun.
In Winds of the Wavy Sea, you play a top down free for all version of capture the flag. Your remote's cursor is a fan, and placing it behind your sail moves it in your desired direction. Just grab treasure and bring it back to your base for points. You can also steal treasure from a ship by shooting it with your cannon.
Finally there's Squidball Sabotage, a squid-laden version of croquet. Played like golf in Wii Sports, Squidball is about lining up a shot, pressing A, and swinging with a desired amount of force. Sending your squid through the sixteen arches will make it poisonous to other squids. Once poisoned, hit the opposing squid to kill them, and the last squid standing wins. If you bump into a squid before being poisoned, you can shoot that squid from a cannon and away from their next designated arch.
Needless to say, none of the games in Blackbeard's Booty are fun or interesting. The game's other mode (Trophy Mode) plays almost exactly like Adventure Mode. Simply select an area that you have beat in Adventure Mode and play through that area's games. The only difference between Adventure and Trophy mode is that you can choose the order of games in Adventure, and the games are pre-chosen in Trophy. That is it.
Winning events will reward you points where you can buy accessories in the game's store. These range from different swords to new sails, all of which are different for cosmetic purposes and offer no strategic advantages.
The graphics of Blackbeard's Booty (go crazy on the boards with that) are nothing to brag about. The uninspired graphics of the game further dampen the experience that the poor gameplay started. To further add to the complaint pile, frequent load screens approaching fifteen seconds appear between games.
Speaking of aggravating features, the game's dialogue strives to be as cheesy as possible. The wittiest thing to come out in pirate talk is "Arrr, I likes big booty, and I cannot lie." Sound lame? Well that's as clever as it gets. Think of how cool Johnny Depp made pirate lingo. Now picture the other end of the pirate talk rainbow. That lame, annoying end of the spectrum is where Blackbeard's Booty lie.
©2009-02-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved