Swashbucklers Dilemma

by: Dave - posted: 12/1/2007 5:36:00 PM

It's always uncomfortable starting a new review, not least because you have to go through a lengthy, often pedantic tutorial.  Some games manage to hide it well; Call of Duty comes to mind in that regard.  Others, not so much.  Swashbucklers is of the latter variety - the tutorial mode is annoying.  If it was a straight tutorial, ok, I'd sit through it. If it was a seamless action oriented tutorial ala Call of Duty, yeah, bring it on.  The problem here is that it tries to be the latter, but is really the former.  You are in the beginning stages of the game, but you're periodically interrupted by what is ostensibly the main character's inner voice.  It just comes off as really hokey:




I hadn't had a drink yet, either, but you can bet your last migraine that I had one pretty danged quick after seeing this!

It rapidly got worse, though.  As soon as I got into the parts of the game where I had to move the character, I discovered that I had a very big problem with the WASD navigation: the 'S' key was stuck.  Not on my keyboard, mind you, but in the game itself. I could "unstick" it by going into a non-navigatable part of the game, but it then wouldn't work at all.  Basically, I can toggle it to on or off.  This makes navigating hard, but fighting impossible.  I'm Googling to look for a patch, and of course I'll try a reboot too.  Sigh.

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