Publisher: Electronic Arts, www.eagames.com
Ages: eight and up
Parental Advisory: Strategy game with ship battles and sword fights.
Violence
Rating: 
Buried treasure, battling pirate ships, and sword fights-who hasn't dreamt
of leading the life of a scurvy pirate? In this regard, Electronic Arts' Pirates:
The Legend of Black Kat is the next generation pirate game that presents all
of the requisite pirate elements.
Throughout, you play as Katarina de Leon, "Kat," a female pirate who wants to avenge her father's death and rid the world of evil pirates. To do this, you sail with a ship and crew to a series of island worlds in an adventure that's somewhat reminiscent of that of a roleplay game.
You can command twelve different pirate vessels, and participate in exciting ship battles. You can customize ships with chain shot, black powder kegs, cannons, magical weapons and more, and during battle, even accelerate to ramming speed and send hapless opponents to the bottom.
The excellent controls let you easily change directions and stay on course, and you can also control the camera to look around. Ship to ship combat is a blast to play, and the game considers the advantages and disadvantages of the various vessels, as well as the angles at which the cannons can fire-if you can find the right angle of approach, an enemy ship can't hit you. And you not only fight other ships, but with entrenched land-locked forts as well.
Each island chain offers its own world. Here you'll find areas to explore, enemy ships that attack you, forts that fire on you, and places to dock. On land, you'll meet characters who send you on quests. If you discover treasure, you'll also have to find the key that opens the chest. Finally, you battle in exciting sword fight sequences. Here, Kat can fight with the best of the pirates, as well as jump and use other weapons that include grenades and throwing knives.
The graphics aren't outstanding, but good enough to convey the theme. And this goes for the sound effects as well. The game's two-player mode, which is fun, offers exclusive ship to ship combat, and lets you customize ships and environments.
In all, Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat is a good game that's worth playing. It'll bring out the pirate in you. Yo ho.
