Deadstorm Pirates (Arcade, PS3) (2010)
Deadstorm Pirates: Special Edition (Arcade) (2014)
Developer: Nex

Review by Faididi and Co.


Dead weight you can throw overboard


Story: Average

If you're a badass pirate, there's only one thing to do, and that's assembling a band of fellow high-seas adventurers and questing for a treasure that's invariably guarded by supernatural, supersized monsters. This is exactly what Leah and Eric's boss does, but he's also smart enough to let our two heroes do all the heavy work, thanks to the weird magical guns that they just happen to own. The character designs and the setting feel like a strange global mixture between the likes of Pirates of the Carribbean and One Piece, but nobody cares when the writing is so goddamn awful.


Gameplay: Average

Nex's Deadstorm Pirates is a 2-Player rail shooter that's simplistic even by the traditional standards of its genre. There's no fancy cover-taking feature, no sniping challenges, and also no reloading at all; Leah and Eric can literally hold down the trigger and hose the place with their infinite streams of magical bullets, blasting every enemy rushing up to club them in the face.

The sole feature of note here is the steering wheel gimmick. At certain scenes, the heroes put away their guns and need to man the wheel controller to steer themselves (like when they're on a boat or a gondola), in order to avoid hazards. The opportunity to turn a big steering wheel admittedly gives the game an amusement park attraction-like feel, but it's far from perfect. The wheel challenges are very brief, and they're never combined with the shooting action. Furthermore, if you're playing with a friend, you need to share the single wheel controller.

The 5 stages can be played in an order partly chosen by the heroes, but the level and enemy designs are nothing mindblowing when all Leah and Eric do is point and click at anything that moves. Sure, the final boss may be a humorously badass anime pirate who ninja-warps around the place and swings dual swords like a mystical samurai warrior, but the methods used to beat him are no different from those used to mow down the first wave of enemies and all the other bosses. The only real challenge comes from overcoming the sometimes spotty hit detection. Unlike in most other rail shooters, the bullets here seem too narrow and don't always make contact if the reticles pass over the enemies' fringes. Not helping is the way the bosses' weak points are arbitrarily located and highlighted. (Why must this particular joint be shot, as opposed to the others?)

The extremely simple nature of the gameplay leaves Deadstorm Pirates a step back from Namco's Time Crisis games that continue to be the high mark of the genre. The wasted potential here is disappointing indeed; things would've been much different had Deadstorm Pirates combined the steering action with the shooting action at the same time, like in Namco's earlier and much more ambitious classic, Lucky and Wild.


Controls: Average

Aside from the oddly imperfect hit detection, there's nothing to complain about the controls, not when you can simply squeeze the trigger throughout the whole game. The wheel steering feels just fine, as long as you're not fighting with your friend over it.


Graphics: Above Average

The characters are colorfully animated, and the environments are decently rendered, from the glowy-eyed skeletons shattering into bony fragments upon being blasted to the splashes of objects plunging into water. We don't mind Leah and Eric's captain bearing such a close resemblance to Jack Sparrow, but why do the heroes' magical guns look like brass boobs with nipples for muzzles?


Audio: Average

There's nothing memorable about the clinky sound effects and the underwhelming music, but the voice acting, combined with the terrible writing, is of the sort that's so bad it's laugh-out-loud funny. The constant commands to attack coming from the old pirate guy who accompanies Leah and Eric grow annoying like nothing else; he takes the cake during the cave scene when he doesn't shut the hell up while using the word "sword" in every single fucking sentence. ("Shoot the SWORDS! They're SWORD phantoms! Evil SWORDS that devour souls! Dark SWORDS of horror!")


Overall: Average

Deadstorm Pirates is not a fantastic rail shooter. Firing infinite streams without ever needing to reload grows dull fast, and the wheel challenges form too small a part of the game to make a significant difference. Spend a few coins on this if you want a cheap thrill or hilariously cheesy voice acting. Otherwise, there are far better rail shooters to play first.


Port: Average (PS3)

Nex and Namco's Big 3 Gun Shooting (the Time Crisis: Razing Storm package) is a compilation of Razing Storm, Time Crisis 4's arcade mode, and Deadstorm Pirates. This entire compilation is compatible with Sony's Move, as well as Namco's own GunCon 3.

Unlike its two fellow ports, the PS3 version of Deadstorm Pirates is virtually devoid of bonus features. It may be arcade-authentic (with the wheel controls now handled by swinging the targeting reticle in a circle or by rotating the GunCon 3's analog sticks), but there are no additional scenes to play or any secret weapon options to discover. The only add-ons you'll find are online rankings and a shortcut trick for accessing the final stage (primarily meant to help with earning the Trophies).

The lack of extra content is a pity, because Deadstorm Pirates could've been seriously redeemed with a more substantial port, perhaps one that offers new scenes that combine the steering action with the shooting action, or perhaps one that introduces adventure-like elements in the vein of Wow and Namco's PS2 version of Vampire Night. The end result is that Big 3 Gun Shooting's offering of Deadstorm Pirates remains as unimpressive as its arcade counterpart.


Special Edition: Average (Arcade) (2014)

Nex's Deadstorm Pirates: Special Edition is an extended version of the arcade game, featuring a pair of optional stages and a slightly longer ending movie that reveals the previously-unseen secret of the treasure (the Poseidon's Breath). The extra stages contain new dialogue among Leah, Eric, and the other good guys, and their slightly more interesting design has the new bosses (a golem and a roc) repeatedly appearing throughout the place. (The heroes don't need to finish all 7 stages to reach the final boss.) Unfortunately, the core gameplay remains the same, so those not thrilled by the original edition likely won't be thrilled by this version either.


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