by: Robert Zacny

One man stands at the crossroads of God of War and Sid Meier's Pirates!: Captain Blood, the eponymous star of 1C's upcoming pirate simulator. His name subtly foreshadows what is to come, and is not watered down by less sanguinary prefixes or suffixes. Captain Blood has a name befitting his occupation: wanton killing. His middle name, though not given in the demo I witnessed, is surely equally appropriate. Perhaps “Dismemberment”.

Captain Blood fights on ship and shore, using a variety of historically accurate weaponry, like the machine musket and the Gatling cannon in addition to a formidable arsenal of blades and cudgels. As he whirls through combat and his chain of consecutive hits grows longer, he begins unleashing brutality after cruelty on his helpless opponents. In this task he is assisted by a hearty crew of pirates, who are game enough despite the fact that that they have neither names nor ponytails as heroic as Captain Blood's.

However, the yeoman's work of piracy is performed by the skipper himself, who dispatches enemies with graceful execution moves. For instance, I saw Captain Blood use his automatic dragoon pistol to unload what I estimated as a billion shots into the belly of a marine he was holding by the collar. A moment later, Blood seized a sword and, in the fashion of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn, chopped a fat Spaniard's legs off.

“How,” I asked myself, as you must be right now, “could this possibly get more awesome?” The answer came from Anonymous Crewman, who cried out, "We have to attack the pinnaces!" I was not precisely sure what a pinnace was, and neither, I suspect, was the captain, but that didn't stop him from striding over to the nearest Gatling cannon and destroying every single ship in Port Royal's harbor.

The game's developers take a bold stand in favor of the turret sequence at moments like this. Captain Blood spent the next several hours blasting away, showing the game's dynamic damage model to fine effect. One shot struck a Spanish tall ship (perhaps a pinnace?) squarely in the sail. Imagine my surprise and delight when, instead of merely tearing the fabric, the sail detonated like a small nuclear device. Then the captain shifted his aim to the ship's hull and waterline, sending splinters flying amidst clouds of smoke. All the while, assault parties rowed furiously ashore, forcing the captain to take frequent breaks from machine-cannonading ships to slaughter marines, until the crew's shouts of "Spaniards on the pier!" sounded less like a warning and more like an invitation. Then Blood returned to his turret. Eventually, the ship he was pounding gave up and exploded. The Spanish Empire immediately plunged into decline.