I had moderately high hopes for Atari`s Swashbucklers Blue vs. Grey. I mean after all, the description on the box says “Get ready to take on the role of Abraham Gray, the schizophrenic and morally lacking Captain in his smuggling adventures throughout the treacherous waters of the Caribbean!” Morally lacking and schizophrenic? In the Caribbean? That sounds like my dream vacation! Further perusal of the promised delights of the game sounded even more intriguing: elements of trading and resource management, role playing, and mano y mano combat. Why, it was practically a gamers buffet! The premise lent a tingle of excitement as well: piracy on the high seas between the Caribbean and the US eastern seaboard. Tall sailing ships such as schooners mixing it up with ironclad steamboats, with political intrigue and shifting war-time loyalties thrown in. What could go wrong?

Sadly, plenty. I knew I was in for a disappointment pretty early into the game when I encountered the tutorial system. There are two basic types of tutorials in my experience: the full-immersion sink-or-swim method of the Call of Duty series, or the pedantic step-by-laborious-step method. B&G (sorry, but there is just no way I`m going to type `Swashbucklers` again) tries to have it both ways, and this is apparently where the promised schizophrenia of Capt. Gray comes in. As you work your way through the beginning phases of the story, you are repeatedly interrupted by the Captain`s “Inner Voice,” which takes the form of pop-up screens that argue back and forth. One screen will describe what the Captain needs to know or do, and the replying screen does, well, absolutely nothing to add value. They bicker back and forth like Itchy & Scratchy, except in an even less entertaining way. Consider this scintillating text: “My inner voice is talking to me... um. This is probably delirium... but I haven`t even had a drink yet.” Really, it was enough to simultaneously give drinking a bad name and drive me to the liquor cabinet to mix up a super-sized Martini. This went on and on for awhile, but eventually tapered off until it became a rare but unpleasant experience, kind of like a colonoscopy.

Another jarring moment came soon thereafter, when the first character interaction occurred. See, the characters don`t actually talk. The voice acting is not just bad, it`s non-existent. Rather than speak, the characters grunt back and forth at each other in a manner reminiscent of a visit to a stroke clinic. Subtitles are provided for the 100% of people in the world that don`t understand pseudo-mammalian mumbling. Of course, given the weakness of the dialog, this may have actually been a blessing.

Given that the tutorial eventually finished, and that I have enjoyed non-spoken games before (Viva Pinata comes to mind), I pressed on optimistically, looking forward to outfitting my ship and setting out to sea for glorious adventures. To get an idea of what I was expecting, consider again Viva Pinata. I was anticipating a fairly complex economic model in which I would have to keep detailed records regarding where trade items were plentiful and cheap, and where they were rare and would sell for great profit. I thought I would have to balance my expenditures on cargo with my costs for acquiring consumables for the crew, maintenance costs for the boat, and the plethora of other details that would go into owning and operating a cargo ship. I thought I would be required to ensure that sufficient comestibles were on hand for extended voyages to avoid crew starvation or mutiny. Being a beneficent sort of Captain, I had planned on providing plenty of salt pork and rum for my hard-working sailors. What I found, though, was an extremely pale version of that. Almost transparent it `twer, Matey. The buying and selling ended up being very rudimentary, and contained none of the challenges a...