Deadstorm Pirates

Overview

Deadstorm Pirates is a historical-fantasy fixed-gun shooter developed and released by Namco Bandai for arcades (using PS3-based Namco System 357 hardware) on April 2010.

Players control Eric and Leah, two members of a pirate crew, as they brave supernatural elements with their special Golden Guns for treasure (namely a powerful artifact known as Poseidon's Breath).

The game uses a deluxe "closed booth style" cabinet with a 54" LCD monitor, surround sound, rumble seats, and three controllers (two fixed guns, one for each player, and a large ship's wheel for use by both players in certain events).

The game was ported to the PlayStation 3 as part of the Time Crisis: Razing Storm release on October 19, 2010, adding support for the PlayStation Move controller. It also received a standalone digital release on November 24, 2010.

Two special 3D versions of the game (the two-player Deadstorm Pirates 3D and the four-player Deadstorm Pirates 4D+), each using 3D glasses, were released shortly after in very limited quantities. Both games make use of very large "theater style" cabinets. The original version was also re-released in 2014 as Deadstorm Pirates: Special Edition, adding two new missions.

Gameplay

Players must complete 3 stages before the fourth and final stage is unlocked. The stages can be completed in any order with their difficulty scaling as the game progresses. The boss of each stage must be defeated by aiming and breaking their weak points shown on the screen. If two players aim at the same spot on the screen, then the attack becomes concentrated and attack is extra powerful.

The game is an on rails shooter but the key to the arcade version is the fact that the player is seated inside the machine. The players cannon shakes as they fire as well as the players seat moving and shaking with the ocean and explosions. The players can not reduce their hp to 0 and receive a game over from crashing the ship too much. Instead, the players hp would be reduced to 1 for immediate death from the next hit. All shooting is paused for when the player has to turn the wheel as fast as they can. During each event, the time is recorded to give the player a good, bad, miss, perfect rating. If the player does exceptionally well, they may receive a special Yo-ho-ho rating after the stage during the score screen.

The score screen ranks how many kills the player accumulated for that particular stage along with how many points they earned. In the PS3 ranking mode, the player can attempt to get a S rank in each stage. After each stage, the players may receive health bonuses and recovery depending on how well they performed. Any extra health a player receives may be transferred to the other player so the health is not wasted.

Game Areas

The player is a pirate in search of Poseidon's treasure. The adventure takes place through:

The stormy sea: Full of undead pirate skeletons, shield skeletons, flying wraiths, scarabs and enemy pirate ships which the player must destroy with their own ships cannons. The player must steer to turn the ship towards other enemy pirate ships.

Mountain valley: Home to large schools of piranha, scarabs, crabs, massive amounts of bats and a gigantic king crab. The player must steer to avoid crashing into rocks while traveling downstream.

Cave: The cave has magic swords, tight corners, enemies firing cannons at you, undead pirate skeletons, bats and a giant snake. The player must steer to avoid crashing in a mine cart.

Great whirlpool: Most of the time spent is avoiding a giant kraken trying to destroy your ship as well as steering to avoid crashing. Some wraiths and undead skeleton pirates are common. The player must steer to avoid the center of the whirlpool as well as all the debris and other ships caught.

Treasure: The undead pirate king as well as constant portals opening which contain undead pirate skeletons and wraiths. The player must steer to aim a giant crossbow.