Review: High Seize
Score:
71%
Version Reviewed: MMC
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
Avast Ye Finnish Hearties!
For once, a story line running through an entire game actually makes sense. Stepping away from the framing device of a young boy in a museum looking back at the adventures of the pirates in question (which just reeks of Fred Savage in The Princess Bride…), you play the part of the young pirate, who starts with no crew, no boat, a missing father and a damsel in distress. I mean, this is every single element of a classical tale of the seas. And it lives up to the initial expectations you have during the cut scenes that introduce the story.
I know I hit on Nokia with their pointless N-Gage story lines in their games, but in High Seize it actually works, so no brickbats, just bouquets here. This style of game presented here actually benefits from this approach.
Origins of a Pirate
Right then, High Seize comes from Red Lynx, and if you’ve been paying any attention to the N-Gage scene you’ll realise that their previous titles (Pathway to Glory and Pathway to Glory: Ikusa Islands) are heavily geared toward strategy. So the fact that High Seize is a turn-based strategy game should come as no surprise. Neither would it shock you to realise that the game feels well balanced, has a superb learning curve, and is challenging but not frustrating.
So, what do you actually do? Well, you fight. That’s what pirates do. In High Seize you’ll do coastal raids, fight along shorelines, storm forts and villages, capture treasure, and undertake all manner of quests. Based on a strict square grid system, where one piece can occupy one square, it’s more akin to chess than a tabletop war game. It’s a turn-about system, so you’ll move all your pieces first, do all your attacking, and so on. You can take as long as you like, and then when your turn is over, your opponents do the same.
Yes 'opponents', because each scenario might not be limited to head-to head duels. You might be doing a pirate raid on the shore against another pirate, but the local army is also around, while the navy is approaching your boats – so you’ll be protecting the boats, defending against the army, while storming the castle to grab the gold. Nobody said this sort of life was easy. And on top of that you’ve got harbours and factories that allow you to build new units to bolster your forces as they get weaker and weaker during combat. There’s a bundle of choices to make. Too many wrong decisions and it’s your Waterloo.
What Be It Like?
Another key difference from Pathway is the regularity of the game. All the statistics for your units (and enemy units) are on display, damage is pretty consistent (a mortar boat is always going to inflict X damage when fired on Y for example). And while some scenarios have “the fog of war”, the small size of the playing area (20 to 30 squares across at most) means that tactics and planning are more keys to victory than luck and chance.
The controls are very easy to understand, but there is a lot of bashing involved. Everything is cursor-based, so you’ll scroll over something and hit five to select it. This picks up a unit and you can move it about, before clicking again to confirm the movement, which is followed by a pop up menu asking if you want to do something special such as fight, capture a village, load people onto a transport, and so on. Ther are a number of information screens and maps you can call up with the other number pad keys, but as these functions are also duplicated in the menu it’s not important to have these memorised. Having such simple controls means there’s very little getting in the way of concentrating on the game – which is a good thing.
A word about the graphics is in order, because they manage to keep everything clear, while also being quite rich and detailed. The cut scenes may lack animation (generally the screen pans over a static watercolour-inspired graphic while audio plays) but they feel sumptuous and completely in fitting with the style of the game.
The closest comparison though, would be to the Nintendo Gameboy Advance's Wars Series – there’s an eerie similarity in the interface, the combat screens, the graphics… but whatever you do don’t mention this too loudly. Because this is a pirate game, and not a modern day war game, okay? But simply, if you loved Advance Wars, then High Seize is for you.
Land Locked or Seaward Bound?
High Seize definitely harks back to the strategy games of the early nineties and earlier. Think UFO: Enemy Unknown or Laser Squad and you’ll be in the right area. Because there are a number of fixed factors such as the strength and effectiveness of troops, it’s much easier to dip in and out of a game. The nature of the game (tactical strategy) means it’s not going to have global appeal, but if this genre floats your boat (groan – Rafe) then there’s not a lot to fault High Seize.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at