Tag: sailing

Sea of Thieves Video Game

- Atticus Leave a comment

Sea of Thieves is a truly unique game in terms of scope and execution. It is a game best played with friends and honestly baffled me when I first played it on release. There is no grand goal at the end of the adventure, the goal is what you make it to be.

Sea of Thieves is an open-world adventure game that tasks the player as part of a crew of pirates going on quests on the high seas. While the game can be played solo where the game matches the player with random players via matchmaking, I have to say that this is not the ideal way to enjoy this game. Playing with friends online creates the most fun scenarios and is how the game was meant to be enjoyed.

Players work together taking on different roles on the ship. One person can steer, one can man the sails and another can navigate. Sea of Thieves really captures the feel of being a pirate, especially when your ship gets close to another group’s ship.

Nothing can compare to the rush of exhilaration that you feel as a player when someone notices another ship on the horizon. “will they attack us? should we pursue them? are they going to be friendly?” all of these questions are made more exciting by knowing that these conversations are also being played out by the other players on the other ship. Maybe you are returning from a quest with a ton of loot on your ship so you don’t want to risk fighting other pirates, or maybe you are on your way to a quest so you have nothing to lose but attack the other players.

I have never experienced an encounter like these until I played Sea of Thieves. Balancing between manning the cannons, plugging up holes from enemy cannon fire, steering the ship, and managing the sails is such a frantic process that the game can go from tranquil enjoyment of sailing, to intense frantic combat in an instant. There is more to the game beyond that too, players can band together and work to take down massive threats like the Megaladon that requires coordination between multiple ships to take down.

I highly recommend this game to any friend group that is looking for a new co op experience to tackle. Blare the “Pirates of the Caribbean” soundtrack loud and proud as you tackle the high seas, fight off skeletons, krakens and of course, other pirates.

Re-Reads: the Master and Commander series

- Ann Leave a comment

What book would you reach for, given the opportunity and time, if you could re-read a favorite book? There’s so much pressure to keep up with the latest/newest/hottest, that you can sometimes forget the simple pleasure of re-visiting an old friend. This week some of our blogging librarians talk about the one book (or book series) that they would re-read.

I’ll start things off with my choice, Patrick O’Brian’s brilliant Master and Commander series which follows the adventures of British Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, surgeon Stephen Maturin. Set during the Napoleonic Wars when Britain ruled the seas, there is no shortage of action and bloodshed but there is also no shortage of laughter, intrigue, nuance, humor, suspense, romance and political manuvering. The enduring friendship between Jack and Stephen is the bedrock of the books, through the waxing and waning of fortunes and luck. Jack, who is a brilliant seaman but bumbling and inept on land both with the ladies and the law, and Stephen, an outsider, a scientist, a sometime spy and an opium addict may seem like an odd couple, but their love of music brings them together.

To call these books great historical fiction is to sell them short; this is great fiction – beautifully written, effortless details that do not overwhelm the story, storylines that will move you to tears or to laugh out loud, adventures that will keep you up late at night to find out what happens (do not start reading the last third of Desolation Island right at bedtime – you’ll be up until 3am!) The quality of the writing and characters does not waver, an amazing feat considering there are 20 complete volumes!

I love these books for the way it’s so easy to completely immerse yourself in them, for the adventures big and small, and most of all for Jack and Stephen, as friends you can always count on.