Review: Tradewinds 2

Who doesn’t love pirates? Being a pirate is something I think that every man, woman, and child has fantasized about at least once in their life. Then again, I am known to be a bit strange so maybe it is just me that thinks about wearing a patch, making friends with a macaw, and searching for treasure! Arrrgghhhhh (insert bad pirate accent) “Yo, Ho! A pirate’s life for me!”

What better way to live out one’s pirate delusion than in a mobile digital world? That is where Tradewinds 2 from Astraware comes into play. This famous PC game from Sandlot Games has been ported by Astraware for your Palm Pre gaming pleasure. We really have to give Astraware a big pat on the back for bringing a game to the Pre that has sucked countless hours of our life away!

The premise of this game is simple. Your goal is to amass a huge fortune by completing tasks, fighting off other pirates, and trading goods. The real meat of the game is the trading. By buying goods at a low cost in one town/time of year and selling them at a higher cost later you can build a fortune that would make Bill Gates seem poor! Trading is by far the quickest and easiest way to earn money in the Tradewinds 2 if you know what you are doing.

When you start the there are five characters to choose from. Each character has their respective strengths and weaknesses. Once you have completed the game (which takes forever!) you can create your own character. Creating your own character adds a little replay value to the game if you ask me! Each character forces you to approach the game with a different strategy.

The story mode of the game is were the real meat is. Each character has his/her own interesting back story and rival pirate. As you go around and complete the tasks in the game you will read some downright hilarious stories! Some of the stories I swear were pulled out of a good Jerry Springer episode. So the humor will keep many laughing for hours on end.

The game play is fairly simple and straight forward. This type of game really just requires you to read and click what you want to do. There are no fancy virtual dpads or accelerometer controls to be had here. Just good old fashioned strategy gaming at its finest. When it comes time to battle another pirate simply choose the ship you want to attack and your cannons auto fire. You can tap on special ammo to launch it as well. That is about as difficult as the game gets. The one complaint I did have is you can only have one ship at a time. Its just not fair when you are battling a whole fleet of pirates!

The graphics and music are nothing special but they get the job done. Very few things are animated but this type of game really doesn’t require a lot in the visual department. It would have been nice to see a little more flare in the towns or during battle though. Surprisingly despite repeatedly hearing the same music I never grew tired of it. Honestly the music had me feeling rather pirate like.

In the end Tradewinds 2 is a great port of a good PC game. Astraware did a bang up job of making this game feel at home on a tiny little screen. This game shows its age when compared to all the flashy new 3D games currently offered on webOS, but it’s still a fun game. If you are the type of person that misses the old school point and click story driven strategy games then this is the game for you.

[Click here to read more about Tradewinds 2 and download it to your Palm Pre today!]