So I had this Captain Blood video embedded right here, but it wouldn’t work – something about their age protection (because no minor would lie about their age online so as to see a little pixelated gore.) Anyways, you can still view a high def preview.

Tired of sissy pirate games that gloss over the brutality of combat? Just watch this video and pay special attention to when Captain Blood beats the tar out of an opponent – we’re talking Mortal Combat levels of bloodshed. For a basic shoot-em-up pirate game, which I don’t think we’ve seen of note since Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat back in 02, I think this is looking pretty sweet. There’s just one caveat, though:

What is Akella playing at? The geniuses that brought us Sea Dogs turned into the fops that brought us Pirates of the Caribbean, and then devolved into the outright morons that brought us Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales. It’s been a painful downward spiral, so the pending (long time pending, for that matter) release of Age of Pirates: Captain Blood, wasn’t anything to be hopeful about. But now word has it that it’s being developed by Sea Wolf. Who’s Sea Wolf, I wonder? Gamespot only shows this one single title under their name, which makes me suspect that they’re just a division of Akella trying to distance themselves from a name that has so steadily drug their own legacy into the gutter. But that’s just specualation – basic web searches turned up nothing.

Of course, there’s also the concern that early Captain Blood screenshots indicated this to be a historical rpg/simulator, rather than the clear shoot-em-up it’s become, and loyalists have clearly gotten themselves into a tissy. The only consolation I can offer is that if it actually is still Akella pulling the strings, it would have most likely been a sucky rpg anyways. By lowering the bar to a mere shoot-em-up, maybe it stands a chance of being as great as the preview indicates.

Anyways, you can explore it yourself at Gamespot, where they have a couple of previews, a whole mess of screenshots, and various other news I can’t be bothered to read just now.