Pirates: The Legend Of Black Kat is, you guessed it, a pirate game! Unlike most piratey adventures, Pirates focuses more on exploration of land than adventure on the high seas, though there is ample amount of action to be had in the ocean. The game offers hours and hours of gameplay, some sweet ship battles particularly in multi-player, and some Zelda-style fighting, but its heavy reliance on backtracking and frequently repetitive combat make it just an above average game instead of a very good one.

Like its gameplay, Pirates graphics are sometimes outstanding, and other times downright disappointing. The characters, particularly Kat, are all large, very detailed and smoothly animated. Kat, like many heroines is an attractive and well-endowed bad ass chick. Shes got a wide variety of attacks, most noteworthy are the Matrix-like attacks she performs amongst several other slick moves.

While Kats standing still, the levels look very good with lots of little touches bringing them to life. However the level of detail perimeter is way to close (thanks IGN). This means that there is a high level of detail close to Kat, but just a short distance away things have less detail. This isnt a problem per se while standing still, but when she runs you wind up seeing things suddenly appear and textures changing out of the blue, which makes things look pretty rough. When out on the high seas, things generally look very good. The water is well done, but looks even better when combined with the games excellent lighting effects. There are several different ships of varying size that you will encounter throughout the adventure. These ships can also be destroyed and sunk, with masts and sails being destroyed along the way. With all the development this game received, it could have looked a little better.

Pirates big audio feature is the fact that it is presented in DTS sound for those of you that are fortunate to have such a system. Unfortunately thats about the only thing thats noteworthy about the titles sound. The dialog is bland, uninspired, and mostly limited to the shiver me timbers and arrrgghh matey that you hear from cartoon pirates. Kats dialog isnt much better and her stiff delivery doesnt add any emotion to the proceedings. There isnt much background music save for situational music thats designed to heighten tension and warn of impending danger. On a side note, those horrible banshees and their painful screams have got to go. Didnt anyone notice how bad those noises are?

The Legend Of Black Kat is the tale of the young Kat, and her struggle to find the man responsible for her parents deaths in two separate incidents. This adventure takes her to many different lands, sees her take on many different ships, and explore lots and lots of islands, over and over again. Along the ways shes got to collect different items, trade things, and collect boatloads of treasure. The gameplay is solid, but its artificially extended with an inane amount of backtracking that is likely to frustrate all but the most patient gamers. You are constantly finding one item that will allow you to get another item that in turn lets you go back to search old places for new things. A certain amount of this is expected, but it gets old. And whats up with the poorly placed, too infrequent save spots? In the 21st century making a game longer because you couldnt save isnt cool.

The best part of Pirates is also the most underdeveloped and underused aspect of the game the sea battles. Fast-paced and easily the best part of the game, the battles are too infrequent and too simple. Theres more to ship-to-ship combat than simply ramming your opponent and circling him while firing, but sadly the combat here does not convey this. Despite its shortcomings, its a blast to play, and theres even some intense multi-player action available for those that have beaten the computer into submission and want to sink their friends best ship.

If I were allowed to make three changes to Pirates, Id shorten the quest by removing a lot of the back tracking, Id stress the importance of ship combat, and Id add a wider variety of quests. Yes, thats what sequels are for, so theres a lot of promise in a Pirates sequel. As it stands now, its an above average adventure game, but not without a hefty amount of issues.