Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships

 PC
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 48 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 48
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 48
  3. Negative: 8 out of 48
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  1. RLee
    Sep 13, 2009
    10
    After reading all the comments i'm desgusted to see this game been voted so poorly, this game is a very good game and well worth buying. I will admit it will take a little getting use to and you do need to use the keyboard to do somethings like sailing and blocking enemy sward strikes etc, but name a game so complex as this that doesn't require the use of a keyboard?

    The    After reading all the comments i'm desgusted to see this game been voted so poorly, this game is a very good game and well worth buying. I will admit it will take a little getting use to and you do need to use the keyboard to do somethings like sailing and blocking enemy sward strikes etc, but name a game so complex as this that doesn't require the use of a keyboard?

    The interface is nice and an improvement on the previous titles interface, of course there are bugs in this game as there are in all games hence the reason patches are released, an example The Sims 3, enough said.

    There are people at a popular forum http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/index who are making mods for this game which adds more ships characters, improves gameplay etc, look at the bad reviews Pirates Of the Carribean had or Sea Dogs 2 as it was going to be called, it was a poor game this forum above made that game much more realistic and playable, and are still working on a build for it right now, most people say bad reviews about a game they have either seen or heard about but very few will have played the games long enough to see past the little bugs and they are little bugs.
    For a game this is the best pirate RPG out, you could buy POTC and add all the mods which would be a great game but this one is already great without those mods, with mods it will be an amazing game, so don't cross this off your to buy list just yet, i say if you wish to see if its worth buying try it out when a demo version is released otherwise you will be missing out, i give this game a rating it deserves 10, the rest of you who choose to knock a game need to start playing them first, this is why you guy's suck and people continue to ignore the reviews you guy's make.    … Expand
  2. Mike234
    Nov 25, 2013
    10
    This game all in all is worth a mere 3 at best for all the design flaws and clunky mechanics. There is much complication in every single menu, on every tab and each screen screen. Very little information is ever given to the player in terms of game functionality. Control of the character on land is dreadful and the game would have been better off without the on-land freeroam all together.This game all in all is worth a mere 3 at best for all the design flaws and clunky mechanics. There is much complication in every single menu, on every tab and each screen screen. Very little information is ever given to the player in terms of game functionality. Control of the character on land is dreadful and the game would have been better off without the on-land freeroam all together.
    It is more a horrible game than it is a good one, but a gamer must never judge a game based on what it is and instead judge it based on how it makes him feel. This game has charmed me completely. All the way from the magnificent main menu theme song to endless ocean, storms and attention to detail of the actual ships. There is passion and love poured into this game by the people who made it and as they may not be the most skilled of developers, they make up for it in what matters most in games.
    Once you put the minimum required effort in learning how to make it work, it will give you hours of enjoyment. However this still only brings it up to about a 7. Why does it deserve a 10 then? Well that is simply because it may not be the pirate game we deserve but it is the only proper one we have and has been ever since it came out.    … Expand
  3. Rapunzel
    Jan 12, 2012
    10
    Corsair subject is very interesting to me. I really liked the game. A good story, a lot of freedom for action. Excellent graphics, not demanding on hardware. I would like to see The Age of Pirates III.
  4. BIEN
    Jun 3, 2012
    0
    This game sucked. I know how people say it needs mods to be better but a game shouldn't need that. It's stupid how you have to find out the simplest things by yourself, it should tell you. This is just another crappy game from another crappy Russian developer. Like 505 studios Il2-Sturmovik birds of prey.
  5. TheBlackKnight
    Aug 31, 2013
    8
    If you are fan of games with an RPG element and enjoy the Golden Age of Piracy, this is a game that you will thoroughly remember for years to come.
    However, I have to give warning for those that have not played the previous titles from Akella including Sea Dogs and Age of Pirates. This game is much deeper that Sid Meier's Pirates! This is the game that AoP and Sea Dogs should have been,    If you are fan of games with an RPG element and enjoy the Golden Age of Piracy, this is a game that you will thoroughly remember for years to come.
    However, I have to give warning for those that have not played the previous titles from Akella including Sea Dogs and Age of Pirates. This game is much deeper that Sid Meier's Pirates! This is the game that AoP and Sea Dogs should have been, but the learning curve is very steep initially. Fully compatible with WIN 7 and looks sharp and has good atmospherics. You can easily modify the system.ini file to allow proper widescreen resolutions up to 2650X1600 in close -to proper aspect ratio. Probably the one major complaint I have is the interface. Its archaic. Controls for the player are not naturally intuitive, and don't "flow" like say the Prince of Persia series, as keyboard and mouse is the predominant means of movement. Using a gamepad is NOT the best option here. Expanded options for fighting with multiple types of attacks and and a more realistic sail model are the real updates here. Contrary to some opinions, there is a plot but really only if you play as the first primary character, Peter Blood. Due to the depth of the game, only hardcore players will ever see the true ending as quests can be incredibly difficult without first building up your character even at moderate difficulty.

    Overall, if you willing to accept the interface issues, and get past the gigantic learning curve at the beginning the game, the whole procress starts to pick up steam as you gather experience. Being able to face down a Man-o-War with a single frigate, board and defeat the crew through multiple levels of decks until you face the captain for capture is exciting. The number of side quests is substantial, and will literally take hundreds of hours to complete. This is game where at the beginning you really have to pick your fights carefully. If you expect to take on hundreds of soldiers and cut them down like bundles of wheat, you will be disappointed, as death comes quickly to the unprepared.

    One final note, I highly recommend downloading the fan-made COAS Combined Mod 3.1.5 which fixes a number of bugs and glitches, massive graphic overhaul, a modified trade system so you may be a peaceful ply the seas, adds 12+ new playable characters and questions, a plethora of new items and weapons, and most importantly dozens of new ships and sea battle capability. This pushes the game install well over the 15 GB range. Even after the main quests are finished (which are incredibly complicated), there are still many new areas to explore.
    Play as Captain Jack Sparrow and defeat Davey Jones and the Flying Dutchman!

    UPDATE MAJOR Upgrade 31 MAY 12

    Age of Pirates City of Abandoned Ships just took another major facelift and upgrade.
    The most definitive age of piracy "sandbox" game ever created.
    Long after I posted this review Pirates Ahoy! and modders finally have developed the game into the full product it should have been back in 2009.
    Gentlemen of Fortune 1.2 was released in late MAY 2012, and has brought the game to over 16 GB. Ship models have continued to surpass all expectations.
    Even after playing the game for over 3 years, it still keeps me coming back to start over. I have yet to finish all the major quests, including the selling your soul to the devil to be granted immortality or the naval books and knowledge for reading. Just as challenging as it was after the first round of "bug fixes" and control issues, but playing the game in full 2560X1600 resolution (widescreen 16:9 Vertical is breathtaking on a large monitor or 1920X1080 on a HDTV is equally as impressive. Build your empire for the colonial power of your choice after a lot of hard work! A MUST buy for the pirate enthusiast with a solid gaming computer.    … Expand
  6. HansPeter
    Aug 19, 2014
    10
    This game is a Emerald hidden in coal It's just awesome how much you can do in this game. Feel like a real pirate or work for the crown and grow and grow
  7. JamesH.
    Aug 1, 2009
    3
    Would have preferred they simply remade the first engine and figured out where they went wrong in the first place instead of going backwards by jumping into more of what they don't know @#^$ about in programming. Sigh.
  8. samh
    Jun 15, 2009
    0
    Terrible game. hard to follow, spend most of my time running around trying like crazy to figure out what to do. graphics are awful. interface is nonsensical. avoid like the plague.
  9. FrogeeS
    Jun 7, 2009
    1
    Silly interfacing, way too many bugs, glitches, and program conflicts. Uses dark-scenes to hide sloppy programming.
  10. DawidK
    Jun 10, 2009
    7
    It's full of holes in design, even of simple quest... Not so many real bugs though. Despite all this, it is extremely fun as for anyone who likes stuff about pirates, sailing and adventures in general! I recommend everyone to play on medium/high difficulty.
  11. GracieA.
    Jul 16, 2009
    9
    This game takes some brain power and is definitely not for the person who needs directions from someone else- a NON-self-starter, help, or cheats. Sound and graphics are easy to do, as a player I am not impressed by them, apparently neither were these developers. after hearing 6 years of Wow, I play with the sound OFFff LOL This is a game for the brainiacs and nerds, or like the ppl who This game takes some brain power and is definitely not for the person who needs directions from someone else- a NON-self-starter, help, or cheats. Sound and graphics are easy to do, as a player I am not impressed by them, apparently neither were these developers. after hearing 6 years of Wow, I play with the sound OFFff LOL This is a game for the brainiacs and nerds, or like the ppl who played D&D from the book. As a 53 yr old female who has been gaming *cough* years, I am totally absorbed after being bored, bored, bored (WoW, Sims, and about 100 others et al.). I am about to sail my ship for a fight and eventually capture a city. the graphics don't lag and the characters don't run gay and merrily like Horizons, EQ2 to mention some so I am happy.… Expand
  12. BlackWidow
    Oct 7, 2019
    7
    This is a decent game, especially if you have the "Gentlemen of Fortune" mod, which fixes many bugs, adds more characters to the game, including females, more ships and quests. However, the game is not for everyone. When first starting out, it can be quite frustrating, even tiresome. You'll need to take huge advantage of save/reload, otherwise you won't make it very far. One little mistakeThis is a decent game, especially if you have the "Gentlemen of Fortune" mod, which fixes many bugs, adds more characters to the game, including females, more ships and quests. However, the game is not for everyone. When first starting out, it can be quite frustrating, even tiresome. You'll need to take huge advantage of save/reload, otherwise you won't make it very far. One little mistake and you're dead. When sailing to other ports, you'll need to make sure you're country is not at war with them, else they'll blow you out of the water. What I like the best is the scenery. The DEVS did a great job, especially the detail that was put into the Sea itself and the Storms. They look real. I myself think the first game in the series, "Caribbean Tales" is better, but that's just my opinion. Try it out for yourself. You may love, or you may hate it. 7/10.… Expand
  13. Alweos
    Sep 1, 2014
    6
    Disclaimer: I was using the very fine Gentlemen of Fortune mod when playing Age of Pirates 2. That may have affected my experience and issues I had with this game.

    This game... It's pretty amazing all things considered. The scope and options are huge, the ships range from nothing more than fishing boats to behemoths that leave you wondering just how the hell it keeps floating, much less    Disclaimer: I was using the very fine Gentlemen of Fortune mod when playing Age of Pirates 2. That may have affected my experience and issues I had with this game.

    This game... It's pretty amazing all things considered. The scope and options are huge, the ships range from nothing more than fishing boats to behemoths that leave you wondering just how the hell it keeps floating, much less move. The Caribbean setting is crafted just adequately (which is rather a shame), and the towns show some life.
    But eventually it all just falls apart, quite literally in my case, but more on that later. The first issue one might take with the game is the god**** DRM system which I couldn't remove from my PC without re-installing Windows. On a lighter note, however. the PIRATES skill system and the rest of customization options are a bit obtuse, but with little time spent in the menu reading what skill governs what action and it becomes quite enjoyable to work with, whether you want to create a stealthy character for sneaking into foreign ports or a veritable dreadnought with enough skill and firepower to take on forts.
    Coming back to the falling apart issue I had: the game either runs poorly on Win7 or is just poorly designed. After quite some time spent in the Caribbean I found myself fighting with the game. It was in such a state that save-scumming was the only option for me. And not because the game had become too hard - not at all. The problem was that after some 10-15 minutes of playing (half an hour, if lucky) the game would crash - and I don't mean freeze or throw you back into desktop, oh no. BSoD, dear reader. I decided not to chance my fates and got rid of the game shortly after that started happening.

    To sum up: It's a good try to make a really interesting game with a big world and many choices. The experience feels more personal than Sid Meier's Pirates or Port Royale games, it's a shame there just aren't more games designed quite like this. Where the game falls short is the bugs and BSoD to top it all of. I'm giving it a 6 just because I had a lot of fun with it, but eventually was disappointed.    … Expand
  14. THRAAKOS
    Oct 25, 2021
    10
    Absolute cold AF game, I'm sure it's one of the 3 best pirate games ever made. You feel like a capitain, u can literally sell slaves (the game mechanics are awesome too, the unique problem is that some ship battles can last a lot). A very inmersive game, u aren't only allowed to play on board, u have to explore islands and play different depending if you are a merchant, a ship-attackingAbsolute cold AF game, I'm sure it's one of the 3 best pirate games ever made. You feel like a capitain, u can literally sell slaves (the game mechanics are awesome too, the unique problem is that some ship battles can last a lot). A very inmersive game, u aren't only allowed to play on board, u have to explore islands and play different depending if you are a merchant, a ship-attacking pirate or you help the king.… Expand
  15. Kastory
    Feb 4, 2023
    10
    It's one of the best RPG games and the best pirate game ever. It's most realistic pirate game and one of the most sandbox game!

Awards & Rankings

56
#56 Most Shared PC Game of 2009

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
61

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. GameStar
    50
    A free roaming role-playing game with pirates? Sounds great, but the developer managed to sink the ship. Apparently the programmers thought it would be funny to force a pirate to use the enter key a lot instead of the mouse, the story is broken and all that’s left is to get rid of this game somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.
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  2. Absolute Games
    85
    Even if this game had nothing but this graveyard of creaking, moaning, almost talking ships, it would have still made a lasting impression. The developers created something more than an all-new location or the floating “prison” concept – an exciting feeling of initiation in a big, dangerous secret.
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  3. Cheat Code Central
    60
    Age of Pirates 2 is relatively easy to learn, as long as you can read the text. The interface is straightforward and there's nothing too complex in terms of rules or moves.
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