By Adam Smith on April 27th, 2012 at 3:00 pm.
I thoroughly enjoyed Port Royale 2 and if your idea of buckling swash and living the life of an outlaw on the high seas involves cargo management and financial ledgers, there’s every chance that you enjoyed it as well. While the combat was about as much fun as scurvy, the economic simulation was deep enough to create a compelling experience and taking up quests across the Caribbean made it feel more like a place than a spreadsheet. Port Royale 3 looks handsome in this trailer, which also contains the greatest press quote in the history of press quotes. Observe.
Did you spot it?
I appreciate the fact that the 17th century’s closest analogue to thermonuclear warfare – a cannonball – occurs as if to herald the quote, but I’m not entirely sure what it means.
What it certainly doesn’t mean that Port Royale 3 is a reinvention, trading in its trading for man-stabbing and its strategy for ship-shooting. The combat has been beefed up and multiplayer has been added, but at its heart, it will still be a game about building convoys, establishing trade routes and growing ever more portly and rich. Or removing your eye with a spoon, then murdering people going about their daily business until you becomeg feared and reviled in your own time, and are then later portrayed in a buffoonish and lovable fashion by A-list celebrities.
Ignore the release date at the end; that’s boxed versions only. Port Royale should be coming into digital harbours on May 4th.
27/04/2012 at 15:03 Tachikoma says:
Woot, can’t wait. Didn’t like the 2nd much (UI gripes), but still occasionally LAN the first port royale from time to time.
27/04/2012 at 15:09 Anthile says:
So, it’s a mantrader?
Interestingly enough, as the quote implies, it’s also coming out for consoles in August.
27/04/2012 at 15:51 Smashbox says:
Mantrader sounds… bad.
27/04/2012 at 15:56 dysphemism says:
Super duper historically accurate bad.
28/04/2012 at 01:13 The Random One says:
Mantrader sounds like someone Elizabethan Superman would beat up.
27/04/2012 at 17:05 jonfitt says:
Yikes.
27/04/2012 at 15:11 Mario Figueiredo says:
“The CoD of the 17th Century boat sims” seems more like the worst press quote in the history of press quotes. Not the greatest.
Thankfully the cannonball saved it. As to signify, “Alright let’s just scratch that.”
27/04/2012 at 15:33 seanblah12 says:
Don’t think he means greatest as in most accurate, more likely greatest for hilarity
27/04/2012 at 15:16 RedViv says:
It’s as if they didn’t even stop to think what kind of sentence they were writing.
27/04/2012 at 17:07 jonfitt says:
It was the CoD of press quotes written in the CoD of airport lounges, while drinking the CoD of Malibu and cokes, and waiting for the waiter to bring out the CoD of cod and chips.
27/04/2012 at 15:18 f1x says:
It makes total sense, if you like manshooting & explosions you’ll like a totally unrelated ecomical strategy game aswell!
27/04/2012 at 15:25 AbyssUK says:
CoD could be, Colon of Doom ? or Centre of Defiance ?
27/04/2012 at 15:27 Simas says:
Cliffs of Dover
27/04/2012 at 15:40 Inverselaw says:
I think he meant cod as in the fish. So I guess Port Royale can feed a nation and kinda smells.
Also you can cook it in lye.
27/04/2012 at 15:47 Vorphalack says:
Perhaps they simlpy had it right with CoD, and this game really will let us call down tactical squid and use chest high waves as cover.
27/04/2012 at 15:29 Drake Sigar says:
I think the reviewer/previewer just likes comparing things to CoD.
The CoD of the Cthulhu-themed survival horrors!
The CoD of the football managament sims!
The CoD of the 2D point & click adventures!
27/04/2012 at 15:54 dysphemism says:
It’s the Dance Central of commercial flight simulators!
27/04/2012 at 16:57 westyfield says:
It’s the Garbage Truck Simulator of Second World War aviation!
29/04/2012 at 22:14 somini says:
The “I Want to Be the Guy” of hards-as-nails platformers.
27/04/2012 at 15:37 sneetch says:
I think the CoD was accidentally capitalised, it should have been “the cod of the 17th Century boat sims!” At long last, fishing will be a viable route to glory!
27/04/2012 at 15:49 Unaco says:
The quote could just be a joke, you know. Like Alt Minds “A Transmedia game (an ARG in High Heels)” – John Walker, RPS. Or Agricultural Simulator – Historical Farming “a game so thrilling, so world-changingly-exciting, that… it’s too late for you, and for your pants” John Walker, RPS.
Other games journalists have senses of humour as well.
27/04/2012 at 15:53 dysphemism says:
NO! The rest of games journalism is a gray, somber wasteland.
But yeah, I’m hoping the writer’s original intent was humor. Regardless, the boys in marketing sure seem to be presenting that quote sans irony.
27/04/2012 at 16:02 deadly.by.design says:
Shouldn’t it just be Le Port 3?
27/04/2012 at 16:03 Bobtree says:
The water looks completely wrong to me. I see reflections of hills and sky, but none of the light blues and greens of shallow coastal caribbean waters.
27/04/2012 at 16:43 psyk says:
Dumbed down for consoles :p
Were the first 2 also on a console?
27/04/2012 at 18:04 MythArcana says:
This looks “streamlined” to the point of an arcade game. It’s fairly evident in the video at the end with the PC product box behind the console versions. How’s that for irony?
And the more of these “spread sheet” complaints I hear, the more concerned I am for gaming in the future.
27/04/2012 at 19:28 pazmacats says:
Marketing is the worst disease since imperialism. All resources have been discovered. Now we need to grab the biggest possible chunk (ie the CoD crowd) by ALL MEANS POSSIBLE.
Your ideas will be assimilated! Then streamlined. Then DRM’d. Then sold und recycled and sold and recycled and sold and recycled and over and over again. But first we will insert them into the lowest common lobotomizer.
27/04/2012 at 22:47 Jimbo says:
It’s clearly the Battlefield 3 of press quotes.