Vendetta: Curse of Ravens Cry (Preview)

The original Raven’s Cry, which came out earlier this year, featured a well crafted story set in an interesting and impressive-looking environment, but the game was plagued by crashes, bugs, and graphics problems, among other issues, leading many players to complain that the game seemed unfinished. To tackle these problems head on, publisher TopWare Interactive and developer Reality Pump Studios decided to do a complete overhaul, and Vendetta: Curse of Raven’s Cry is their attempt to present the story of Christopher Raven as it was intended to be experienced.

Once again, you step into the role of the bellicose pirate captain Christopher Raven, who has a certain reputation throughout the entire Caribbean. But at the beginning of the game, Raven’s lacking some of the things you’d expect a sea captain to have – namely, his own ship and crew. After exchanging a few words, along with a fair amount of swordplay, you’re able to procure a run-down pirate ship from a man who’s just passed away from sword-related injuries. But this is just one of several paths you can take as you attempt to get Christopher Raven back out to sea to become the pirate he’s always been. In any event, your journey quickly takes you to a nearby brothel, where you begin to see how Christopher has earned his dubious reputation. Without a moment’s hesitation, the pirate drives a knife right through the hand of one of the johns in order to get some information out of him. What you learn will send you on an adventure from port to port across the whole Caribbean, where you will take on a wide variety of jobs and send countless other privateers to a watery grave at the bottom of the sea, all in a mad quest to discover just who is responsible for the death of Christopher’s family many years ago, and to avenge them once and for all.

Gameplay

Vendetta retains most of the combat system from the original game, where most battles are fought using the mouse. The left mouse button controls you main attack with your sword or dagger, and the right button allows you to block enemy attacks. You can also unlock up to four additional skills and attacks, which you can perform using the number keys. These all have a certain cooldown, but your standard attack can be used at any time. Using the pistol requires you to use combine the mouse and keyboard, with the keyboard being used to manually aim and reload the weapon. This adds a bit of realism to the 18th-century weapons featured in the game, forcing you to really think ahead when making ranged attacks, in contrast to modern shooters or action games. In the heat of battle, especially against a group of foes, taking the time to reload your weapon can easily lead to a bitter and anticlimactic end.

Overall, I can say that both land a sea combat is considerably more realistic and less static than it was in Raven’s Cry. It’s just a lot more dynamic, which makes adds a lot more tension to the atmosphere. The controls work really well on both land and sea, giving you more or less perfect control over your pirate captain. They also sped things up quite a bit out at sea, allowing you to get from place to place much more quickly and easily than in the original game.

Graphics

Even after the first few feet of ground we covered in the shoes of Christopher Raven, it was apparent that Reality Pump had done a lot with the graphics in this new version. Vendetta is considerably more detailed than its predecessor, with an authentic pirate atmosphere that’s much more realistic and immersive. This is easy to see just walking through the towns, but it’s really when you get out to sea that it’s particularly noticeable, both aboard your ship and in the water itself. It’s the minor details like the sheen on the raven’s head and the objects and decorations you find inside the houses that really stand out and make the world appear more realistic and alive.

Overall, the game world is just much more believable and well-rounded, which makes it a lot more fun to explore your surroundings and follow the main storyline. And when you add all the side missions and stuff they’ve added you’re looking at a good 40 hours of gameplay, during which you’ll come across several new characters to meet and jobs to do, often complete with their own new cut scenes.

Sound

The sound design in Vendetta is pretty great. The English voice acting has been completely redone, and it’s no longer missing in random places like before. Roberto Blanco, a popular folk singer (among other things) in Europe since the 1950s who specializes in Caribbean-style music, lends his distinctive voice to several street musicians in the game. Overall the new voiceovers are a lot more polished and professional sounding than before.

The balance between background sound effects and dialogue also comes off a lot better, with both elements working together in harmony and not clashing like they sometimes did in Raven’s Cry.