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A Captain and his loyal parrot. Pirates, Vikings and Knights II is a Half-life 2 mod based off of the original Half-life mod. It is based around, you guessed it, pirates, vikings and knights. A large part of the game is sword combat and this is what originally caught my attention. Originaly wrote for http://SheerGamer.com While I can’t say I’ve played the original mod, I can say I have played PVK2 on and off for nearly 2 years. The game today features 6 classes, 2 per team, showcasing various arsenals of weaponry you’d expect to find on their historic counterparts. Yes, there may not have been a time in history when these three went at it head to head but we can look the other way on this minor detail. The highlight of the game is undoubtedly the melee combat system. While easy to learn, close quarters combat is certainly difficult to master. While it is possible to block any sword attack so long as you have a shield or sword, not everyone can “perfect parry” an attack. Perfect parrying in the game involves blocking an opponents attack while moving in the opposite direction your opponent was moving when beginning their attack. Successfully pulling off a pp, as it’s often called, requires a keen sense of awareness. It’s one thing to get one here and there, it’s another to do so at will. There is a catch of course, you must have as many hands or more on your weapon as the attacker to stun and quickly counter-attack. Perfect parring, or simply parrying in the wrong direction, still serves a purpose by reducing either larger or slightly the amount of damage you take respectively. Chasing down an archer This is where things get real interesting, the pirates do not carry any two handed weapons and resort to alternative tactics. This comes in the form of harassment and annoyance. The skirmishers carry both a pistol and an explosive keg, captains a shotgun and parrot. While this may sound fun, the skirmishers near uncatchable speed make them the easiest and often best class in the game, situation permitting. Viking berserker’s wield either dual hatchets or a single large axe. Their counterparts, the huscarl bring with them a sword and shield combination, a very similar large axe, and throwing hatchets. While throwing axes deal the most damage of the fast-fire primary ranged weapons they are also the most limited, a max of 8 with a spawn of 5. They are also harder to aim due to the slower velocity then other ranged weapons. Overall the vikings bring exactly what you’d expect from vikings, powerful and simplistic weaponry and the highest pain tolerance in the game. The heavily armored knight Knights naturally have the heavily armored knight with a large European sword. The highest dealing weapon in the game is limited only by is painfully slow attack speed. Of course a knight couldn’t be considered a knight without a shield, it is used in conjunction with a small sword dealing very little damage. The other class in the castle dwellers is the standard archer. Equipped with a crossbow, long bow and small sword they are able to pick up kills from a far relatively easily. Unfortunately of the different game modes, all tend to resort to a glorified team death match. There is very little incentive to win, outside of bragging rights for the 5 seconds at the end of the round. This causes a few problems, most of which is you often waste your time trying to achieve an objective only to find out nobody really cares. Another problem the death match feel brings to the entire game is you’ll constantly be chased around by a pirate taking pot shots at you with their pistol and simply running when confronted only to return moments later. While there are situations and maps that make this difficult, overall a skilled pirate can easily wreck havoc on players. Perhaps the most disappointing part of the game play is exactly what makes it sound so appealing at first, the variety. For some reason a large amount of knight players feel the need to play an archer, which would almost be fine except the majority of players can’t hit anything more often then on occasion. Which again, is fine unless your trying to win an objective playing as the lacking and essential heavy knight. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good archers and they do help tremendously but overall they are nothing but an annoyance that forces other players to waste time chasing them or are simply ignored. Pirates, with their pistols and parrots and lack of equally strong close combat weapons, also spend most of their time running. In this cat and mouse game, the lone knight and vikings play the unfortunate role of cat. If you happen to be playing one of these three classes, you will find yourself wishing the skirmisher would turn around and fight or the archer would forget the exact location of, the all too numerous, food supplies while pitifully trying to hit you. The official mod maps have been done very well and fit in with the theme perfectly, it is obvious a lot of attention to detail is put into this mod. This can be seen all over the place from sudden death destruction to the, oddly small, yet perfectly nestled castle. Sudden death in the team death match mode on this map causes bird to attack players and lava to rise up. I often find myself wishing there was a little more depth to the arcade style combat. Something as simple as a leg hit slowing movement for several seconds, a war cry temporarily disorienting opponents with fear or a stamina system. I can’t complain too much though, after all it is a mod and nobody is making it rich from this title. I can respect that and the unique little game they have crafted and look forward to future releases, which judging from the official website should improve on some of these issues. If some of the fundamental annoyances of the game could be solved the player base would surely remain strong months after new releases, not slowly decline into a mediocre amount of players consisting mostly of new folks trying it out for the first time. In closing I’d like to say that perhaps my time with the game has made me a little more critical then the average first timer. Regardless of this, the game is a lot of fun and should be experienced by any sheer gamer! It’s free, what do you have to lose? 7.5/10 For download information and everything else you could possibly want to know about the game visit http://www.pvkii.com. http://SheerGamer.com |
