Man O' War: Corsair - Warhammer Naval Battles

(Post 1.3.4 Update) At first glance, this game is not very visually impressive, but the game play and attention to Warhammer lore is fantastic. Being able to sail throughout the Old World at your own leisure, whether as a pirate, merchant, or something in between, is an absolute joy. The scope of the game is quite ambitious, (an open-world adventure/pirate combat game) but they have largely achieved what they set out to do, and the core gameplay is solid. The game is let down by it's simpler graphics and animations, and the occasional bug (although nothing game breaking), however if you're not bothered by graphics, you'll get many hours of enjoyment out of this. Fans of Warhammer Fantasy will definitely enjoy this, however wait until it is on sale, as it's full asking price is a little steep.

the navel combat is barebones, on foot combat is a joke, the economy is basic and the AI are brain dead. it will not receive new content as far as anyone knows, its buggy as hell and lacks content to the point its not worth getting outside of collecting an oddity for your library there are no mods to save this game and even the wiki is empty

The basic premise is solid, naval combat is entertaining, and trade is fairly functional, but boarding actions make me want to rage-quit. The tutorial doesn't really give you enough indication about what the menus and controls do, so I had to bring up the keyboard mapping menu to find out what the various keys did by default. After 20-ish hours of play, I believe I've figured out most of it. Ship to ship combat is fluid enough, but once a boarding action starts, my frame rates drop to 2-3 per second on a mid-grade PC. Worse, the NPCs can run THROUGH opponents to get behind them (your character can't), and clip through obstacles on deck (you see heads and limbs sticking out of a solid object), other than cannons, which they hop onto and then off again at a full run in less than a second. To top off the absurdity, there's a fairly high chance in each battle that my captain would go into "spin mode", changing facing randomly with each frame, making them completely uncontrollable until the end of the battle. After only 20 hours of play, I've seen the same mission types being offered over and over again, to the point where I can see it getting really repetitive after 50-100 hours of play. If not for the frustrating boarding nonsense, I'd say this game was pretty good for 50-100 hours of entertainment, and well worth picking up at a decent discount. As is, it's only so-so.

Why is this great? You can make up your own story while playing (it’s like good old ELITE in that). It hits a sweet spot between easy controls and a complexity of possible strategies and play-styles: Develop a fleet, join factions or stay solo. Influence the dynamic diplomatic changes of ports or just go hunting/exploring, concentrate on missions or piracy… You don’t have to know the warhammer races (I didn’t miss anything). You can come back weeks later and just continue – nothing stops you from sailing in a different direction and I love that. Manowar Corsair (MWC) vs. Assassins Creed 4 – Black Flag: Naval combat plays out like AC4, but MWC makes good use of wind. Graphics speak pro AC4. Melee combat is clunkier in MWC, but also more direct, less “puppeteer” than in AC: You can hit your enemy e.g. with a huge warhammer, so he stumbles back into the fire on deck. No land exploration in MWC. Trading is less dynamic in AC4. Much more variety of ships for player in MWC and night/day changes (but also much time spend at night, less “feel-good” sunny scenery (but the sunrise… aaaah). MWC has also snow :) No bullshit backstory in MWC. Sadly: also no shanties. MWC vs. Sid Meier’s Pirates: Both give much freedom of choice (in Pirates the choices have more direct consequences). Pirates (latest version) is a little cartoony, MWC uses its grim theme well (flyers, sacking ports, dwarf submarines, …). In MWC there are more 3D interfaces (sailing, fighting, ports). MWC is more open-ended. Trading interface is more informative and fun in MWC. Bottom line: Corsair game is a bit rough (missions can feel repetitive, graphics are a bit “from the old world”), but it’s also gorgeous and I feel there is no better pirate-free-roam-fight-trade-sail-simulator for ye ol’ solo player at the moment (also better than Tempest). Devs have stopped developing, but irritating bugs are gone, more factions in. There’s much love in this and I feel I will continue to have a blast for a long time.

So - I say 'Buy it on sale,' but what I really mean is, I've uninstalled it and don't intend on ever playing it again. Graphics = 8/10. For it's day, they did quite well. Audio = 2/10. The only reason I don't rate this as a 1 is that I want to reserve such a review for something even more bad. I'm not sure such a game exists, though. At least, not a published one. I've played other games where I rolled my eyes at terrible dialogue, or ridiculous NPCs, but the audio on this game was so bad that I simply couldn't keep playing it. If you're deaf as a stone, however, you might really enjoy this. The concept isn't bad (if horribly unrealistic, even for a fantasy game), and the combat is enjoyable.