When a game can’t hold your attention for even an hour, and has you wishing you could go for a fun day out with the lads to watch some paint dry, you know you’re not exactly onto a winner.
Introducing Port Royale 3, which is the third instalment of the business simulation game from Kalypso Media. From the moment I started one of the two campaigns I knew it wouldn’t be taking up too much of my time. I’m not sure I can manage to put into words just how terrible I find this game, but I will give it a good go.
The game offers two campaigns, one being the path of the trader which focuses more on the economic part of the game. The other is the path of the adventurer, which details the combat aspect of the game. You start off both by giving a name, gender and choosing a flag.
Both campaigns begin with the same tutorial level, and I didn’t get much further than that in both. You’re introduced and talked through the first part of the game in the form of a wearisome old man. You see a head in the top corner, with what appears to be no attempt to synch the words with the movement of the mouth. The tutorial left me confused in parts, and not knowing what I was doing. At one point you’re left to ‘get to know the game and the tutorial will begin again shortly’, at which point I was baffled.
Parts of the game are split by uninspiring cutscenes that consist of panning artwork and yet more voiceovers. One redeeming factor for the game is that it could be proud of its graphical prowess…had it appeared as an app on an iPad. This is not a game that shows off what this generation of consoles and PC’s are capable of, with a lot of cluttered menus taking up a bulk of what’s on offer.
I can easily say that Port Royale 3 isn’t my type of game. However maybe someone with more of a business mind could well enjoy it, but that someone would definitely not appear on my Christmas card list. This game has annoyed me, I always want to get the most of a game that I am reviewing, no matter how good or bad that I find them, in order to give the reader the best understanding of all aspects. But Port Royale became so much of a chore and a struggle to play so quickly, that I almost found myself weeping with boredom on a number of occasions, and I only had a few hours with it.
Unless you are a fan of business simulators then please avoid this game. From the experience I had, this is one of the, if not the worst game (and I use the word game in the loosest possible way) I have ever had the displeasure of playing, and because it had so little going for it from my point of view, I have to give it the lowest possible score. 1/10