Reviewed: PT-Boats KOTS Feb 2009

[Sonarman]

Russian site 'Absolute Games' have posted a review (http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ag.ru%2Freviews%2Fpt_ boats_knights_of_the_sea&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) of the recently released (in Russia) PT-Boats Knights of the Sea.

[stabiz]

Well, I feared that would happen when they dumbed it down to please everybody. :cry:

[Sonarman]

Reading between the lines on some of the forums it seems that "the game we wanted" (pure simulation) was basically binned about three years ago when 1C came on board to sponsor the project, apparently they insisted on the RTS elements and direction, based I think on the success of Battlestations Midway in the marketplace at that time. From what I've read, most of the dev team were totally opposed to this but, it went ahead anyway delaying the game for about 2-3 years and totally changing it's direction.

I think the partnership between Akella and 1C did a lot of damage to their naval games, first Swashbucklers which initially looked promising became a dumb Pirates! clone then Captain Blood which again looked good initially became a hack and slash type game, now we have PT-boats let's hope something still survives of the original concept.

Thankfully Akella now has severed the PT-Boats relationship with 1C so we may see some of the binned things come back in the shape of future patches & the planned addon.
Already we are seeing positive signs with the release of the Akella/Seaward release of City Of The Abandoned Ships next month which seems much closer to what we would expect from an Akella pirate game.

I think Akella could be great, they do seem to like doing naval games which is good news for us. But they need to set clear goals and stick to them instead of being influenced by whatever other games are doing in the marketplace and they need to listen to their primary fanbase (us) instead of trying to please all and sundry and ending up with a concept so watered down it satisfies no-one.



UPDATE Check out the Sukohi.ru forums (http://66.196.80.202/babelfish/translate_url_content?.intl=uk&lp=ru_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.sukhoi.ru%2fforum%2fshowthr ead.php%3fs%3d84dd5ec5c03a95ac718575d2a26b446b%26t %3d30335%26page%3d10)which has over 14 pages on the game and there developers are posting there.

[stabiz]

I hope you are right!