Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Pimps at Sea

1. Official Site
2. Platform: Xbox
3. Publisher: #TBD
4. Developer: Bungie Studios
5. Release Date: 04/01/06
6. Genre: Strategy

by Mitch Youngblood

Pimps at Sea carries in its hold something of a salty reputation. The venerated Bungie Studios teases with its finest properties to the point of breaking and so it has been with the launch of their new franchise set on the high seas of adventure. It may have been a long time coming, but the man with da plan has finally set foot in the port and it is a merry time for all.

Imagine for a second that you are a pimp. At sea. The bountiful beauty of the endless ocean stretches before your spyglass as your wenches bring you only the finest pillaged ale while your crew fine tunes your Pimp-N-Ator 4000 Launch Craft™ as you prepare to lay siege to the hallowed Port Royale W. Cheese. The buxom crew scurry to and fro as all prepare for the assault when you realize that while your artillery is properly tricked out, you have failed basic Pimpmanship by not dressing to thrill.

This is where the beauty of Pimps at Sea kicks in. At any point in your high seas-high stakes adventure, you can customize any part of your bitchin’ attire. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about pleasin’ the ladies yo.

I will say one thing about Pimps at Sea: I was disappointed in the graphics. It’s one thing to take a while creating a game if you actually put some effort into the visuals, but this game borders on disheartening. Clearly everything is a throw-back to when games didn’t have to rely on pretty pictures to hide the truth that nothing of substance was behind the curtain, but had I an Etch-A-Sketch and a notepad I think I could have drawn prettier pictures than this in my sleep.

On the plus side, the shine from your pimp’s bling is not tarnished by the lackluster visuals. For some reason, importing characters from other games actually brings the resolution from those games into this one which can lead to all sorts of fun options. Just for kicks I imported the Princess Leia from LEGO Star Wars and found it so funny that I converted the whole game over to LEGOs for one play through.

Bungie should be commended for this engine because conceivably hardware requirements could become antiquated courtesy of Pimps at Sea. Don’t like how this game looks? Then import the graphics from another game and see how you like that! I’m off to see if I can’t cross Leisure Suit Larry with Black and see what sort of pimpin’ duds I can get from it.

Microsoft’s decision to include a hard drive with the original Xbox is proven a masterstroke because the custom soundtrack option leads to genius combat. Listening to When a Man Loves a Woman while pimping out your ho’s in exchange for rigging and lemons makes everything worthwhile. In hindsight, setting the soundtrack to random probably was the smartest decision I could have made because beating down the local barkeep for skipping out on his ho dues while listening to Baby Got Back was note perfect. It was even better that he relented and gave up his only daughter as barter, and being that she was cute I figured it was about equal to his debt.

The normal sea sounds are in full effect here, and those of you with surround sound setups will marvel at how the bling rattles as your pimp glides through town. I particularly enjoyed how the spurs rattled on a pair of ostrich skin cowboy boots I picked up in Port Jon Smith, before I raided it and burned it to the ground. Hey, if there are no wenches about then what good is the port to a pimp?

The controls for Pimps at Sea are surprisingly fluid given the sheer number of options for smacking around ho’s. Pulling the left trigger locks onto your ho and pulling the right trigger lets you beat them back into their proper place. There’s a neat trick if you’ve grabbed a hold of your ho and pull back on the right thumbstick, the speed at which you move it forward determines how fast you slap her. Depending on whether she brought in the booty or not (or whether she had it coming), you can slap her gently or really rough her up.

The A button is essentially your all-access-pass because this is how you open doors, activate the Ho Trade™ window, and initiate conversations. The X button is your primary fighting/pimp-slapping button so once you go into battle against fleets of enemies or a recalcitrant wench, this is the button that gets the job done. The Y button shouts for your followers and ho’s to come back to you if they get too far away which in my game was about two feet. Wenches should know that their place was behind me, but sometimes they didn’t get the message. So I’d hit the Y button to bring them in nice and close, grab ‘em with the left trigger then debate whether to mess ‘em up or let them off with a stern warning.

Complain all you will about the length of development, but Pimps at Sea has gameplay to spare and gamers will be hard-pressed to beat this bitch in one sitting. The Pimp-My-Homie™ Pimp Generator is almost a mini-game by itself and lets you customize your pimp right down to his pimping lifestyle before taking to the high seas for plunder and booty. After naming my pimp Wayne Brady, I proceeded to select a series of fine accoutrements to bling his pimpin’ ass right the hell out. When he walked out of his cabin and surveyed all before him, his women were on their knees immediately which told me that Wayne Brady was a god among men.

That’s right boys and girls. Non-player characters actually respond to how you look and act courtesy of the Polygamous AI™ that measures the respect and adoration of both women and men on an ever-evolving scale. There were rumors once of scaling the game levels so that the more blinged out you became, the more blinged out enemy pimps became but I failed to see an instance of this anywhere. What this reviewer was astounded by was the response the enemy pimp Marva gave to me once I boarded her ship. She actually threatened me for boarding her ship and told me she’d plant her leather boot so far up my backside I’d be tasting leather.

Oh, it was on. Wayne Brady choked himself a bitch or three that night let me tell you.

Players guide their pimp through the rigors of pimpdom by attacking ports and welcoming the town’s wenches into your stock. Should you decide to go the friendly route, then you can simply trade out the ho’s for fair market value and see what you’re offered in return. Exotic items are naturally more expensive and could cost more ho’s than what you have on hand, but the end result is worth it as the higher your pimp levels are the more likely it is that you’ll successfully seduce a governor’s daughter(s) onto your ship.

Those jewels, my friends, are truly priceless to a pimp.

This, dear reader, is the go-to game of the season. Not only can you import different characters from different games into the Wench-O-Matic thus creating an endless array of beautiful ho’s, but with the latest updates from Microsoft’s Xbox Live service you can also take images from a burned CD and copy them over to the directory the game creates on the hard drive. Just make sure that Aunt Bea’s 80th anniversary pictures aren’t on there or else you could be in for a rude awakening when your pimp needs to regain his health by bagging his latest ho and she looks just like family. An awkward moment, that.

The customization options border on endless for Pimps at Sea which would be enough for most games, but the combat and ways in which to actually pimp border on mind boggling. There is an unexpected depth to the game that borders on ridiculous, but I do think Bungie was slagging off when they only put roughly 14 hours of gameplay in. The upshot is that despite the short experience for the main storyline, the various ways you can pimp yourself to success means almost endless replay value.

Originally announced for PC then changed to an Xbox exclusive the following Spring, Pimps at Sea has been in development for long enough to make even the most scurrilous miscreants lose interest at the mention of its name. But all naysayers will soon be proven wrong for the final build Bungie was kind enough to unearth for us doth speaketh of great things to come in the gaming world. This is absolutely the way to launch a franchise, and with the recent announcement of Pimps at Sea 2: Pimps Up, Wenches Down, Bungie and Microsoft know they have something special on their hooks.

Once you and your fellow pimps have blinged out Lara Croft then pimp-slapped her with your Cane O' Nine Beyotches™ you will know true multiplayer gaming bliss. This is the must-have title for the season, if only because riding your Pimp-N-Ator 4000™ into a harbor then blinding the locals with the shine from your pearl walking staff is the sort of adventuring that comes around once in a lifetime.

Gaming Trend Score

89

1. Graphics: 70
2. Audio: 92
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 94
5. Value/Replay: 91
6. OVERALL:89