Pirates Vikings and Knights (oh my!) was a total conversion mod originally released for Half-Life. It was followed by Pirates Vikings and Knights II, which used the Source engine. The game is best described as Exactly What It Says on the Tin, featuring a three-way battle among Pirates, Vikings and Knights.
The Combat is focused mostly on a directional melee system, whereby the player can attack four different ways: left, right, overhead or stab. Blocking is also separated into four directions, and if your block direction and timing is right, you get a chance to quickly launch a counterattack. The battlefields range from European castles and countrysides to seaports and pirate havens to snowy landscapes and forests. There are also completely different ones, such as ancient ruins, grand cathedrals, roman arenas, graveyards, deserts and many more. Depending on the map, the teams' objectives may vary from gathering treasure to capturing territory or simply eliminating all enemies.
Pirates, Vikings and Knights II is a class-based multiplayer game. As of now, eleven classes have been completed, with 18 planned in total. On the Pirate Team we have the Skirmisher, The Captain and the Sharpshooter, the Vikings have the Berserker, the Huscarl, the Gestir, and the Bondi, and the Knights go into battle with the Heavy Knight, the Archer, the Man-at-Arms and The Assassin. The classes yet to be released include a Healer class for each team (Pirate 'Ealer, Seidkona and Cleric respectively), a tank for each team (Buccaneer, Jarl and Lord), and a stealth class for the Pirates (Freebooter).
PVKII Gamemodes
At the moment, the game has four gamemodes, but more may be added in the future:
- Booty is the PVKII equivalent to Capture the Flag. A number of chests are located somewhere on the map, and the goal is to bring those chests back to your team's base and keep them there. The more chests are in your base, the faster your team's ticket counter goes down. The first team to reach zero tickets wins. On some maps (e.g. bt_island) one team starts with all chests in their base, and the other teams have to raid the enemy's base to get them. For game balance, the team with the treasure hoard has a higher starting ticket count than the others.
- In Territory, the goal is to capture and hold specific areas of the map by killing all enemies inside and staying in the area until it is yours. Much like Booty, the more territories your team owns, the faster the ticket counter goes down, and the first team to reach zero wins. Alternatively, if a team manages to capture all territories and hold them for 30 seconds, they win immediately.
- Last Team Standing: The three teams are dropped into an arena and given the job of putting the others into the ground. But there is a catch: Like the name suggests, there is no respawning. Whichever team is still standing in the end wins the round. But don’t take too long, or a map-specific Sudden Death will make life just a little more uncomfortable for you.
- Trinket Wars is a slight variation of the usual Team Deathmatch 'kill-everything-you-see' gamemode. Each team gets their own trinket: The Pirates get a Cup of Grog, the Vikings a Drinking Horn full of Mead and the Knights get the Holy Grail. Once again, each team has a ticket counter they need to get down to zero by killing enemies. However, only kills made while standing near the Trinket carrier count towards this goal, forcing the teams to stay together. Whoever is carrying the Trinket gives themselves and all nearby teammates Regenerating Health, but should the trinket carrier die, that team's ticket counter will go up by one point. If the Trinket carrier dies and the Trinket is not picked back up within a short time limit, the team will be unable to reduce their tickets for a short period of time, putting them at a disadvantage and making them a safe target for the other two teams.
The rest of the game provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: The Archer's voice actor makes him sound rather... fruity. He's also whiny and unsportsmanlike.
- Anachronism Stew: Of the intentional variety.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can unlock titles for your character (for example, The Heroic, The Swift, etc...) and colours for your parrot by earning achievements.
- Asymmetric Multiplayer: The three teams each have unique classes to choose from, and thus each require a different approach to fighting.
- The Knights suffer from varying degrees of Crippling Overspecialization, and need to cover for each other and work together to achieve victory. The Archers can deal massive ranged damage, but need the Heavy Knights to keep enemies from getting too close. The Heavy Knights are exceptional in close quarters, but due to their slow speed, need Men-at-Arms to chase any fleeing enemies down, etc.
- The Vikings are the most versatile of the three teams. The best course of action for them is to stick together and function as The Horde, smashing through their enemies with brute force. If a Viking finds himself outnumbered, he'll have a hard time, because a fleeing Viking is usually a dead Viking.
- The Pirates have relatively weak weapons and low damage. However, they also have lots of toys to annoy their enemies with. The best course of action is to act as The Swarm, letting the other two duke it out while dealing Scratch Damage from afar. And when facing off directly, throw in a powder keg, sic a parrot on them, basically do anything to give yourself an unfair advantage, and all the while keeping in mind when to fight and when to shamelessly abandon ship.
- Attack Animal: The Captain has trained his parrot to harrass and distract his enemies.Captain: Peck their eyes out, little one!
- The Berserker: Guess who.
- BFS: The Heavy Knight's two-handed sword.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Players have an armor meter next to their health. Armor reduces damage taken from all attacks until depleted and can be replenished by picking up the incredibly obvious floating plate armor pickups. Obviously, the plate-mail clad Heavy Knight has more armor than say, the Skirmisher, who doesn't even have a proper pair of boots.
- Booze-Based Buff: The Trinket for the Pirates is a Mug of Grog, while that of the Viking team is a Drinking Horn full of Mead.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: If an enemy gets too close for comfort, the Archer can also switch to a Shortsword to fend them off. The Bondi can do the same with his Seax.
- Capture the Flag: The "Booty" game mode, in which the object is to capture treasure chests from the opposing teams.
- Cherry Tapping: Kicking is primarily meant to knock enemies back, but it's entirely possible to kill someone as long as they're on low health.
- It's also possible to kill someone by throwing a powderkeg at them.
Skirmisher: (disappointed) Why'd I bother lightin' that?- And of course the Man-at-Arms' fart Special can gas enemies to death.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Red for the Pirates, green for the Vikings, and blue for the Knights.
- Cool Versus Awesome: Just in case the name of the game didn't tip you off.
- Creepy Cemetery: lts_gravedanger takes place in an old graveyard with a small chapel.
- Critical Hit: So far, only the Man-at-Arms' Special makes enemies vulnerable to these.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Averted. In order to even the odds against the heavily armored, well-equipped Knights and Vikings, the Pirates make extensive use of gunpowder weaponry.
- Fartillery: The Man-at-Arms farts in your general direction!
- Gladiator Games: The map lts_arena takes place in a Roman colosseum, though there are no spectators. (The soon-to-erupt volcano might have something to do with that)
- Gratuitous French: Courtesy of the Man-at-Arms.
- Gratuitous Spanish: As used by the Sharpshooter.
- Grenade Hot Potato: Of a sort. As of Version 3.4, the Skirmisher's powder keg can be kicked back and potentially used to kill the offending pirate.
- Guns Are Worthless: Not totally worthless, but generally the pirates' guns are far less effective than the melee weapons. They are best used as an opening attack or for a Tactical Withdrawal.
- The Sharpshooter averts this with his long rifle and Artisan's Flintlock, serving as the Pirate counterpart to archer.
- Guns Do Not Work That Way: None of the pirates seem to reload their guns correctly. Somewhat Justified by the fact that realistic reloading animations would probably take even longer than they already do.
- Both the Skirmisher and the Sharpshooter seem to forget the powder when reloading their pistols. Also, they both don’t use the ramrod.
- The Captain does use the ramrod when reloading his blunderbuss, but he also uses no powder, and he only uses a single bullet which then magically turns into grapeshot upon being fired.
- And then of course he throws all realism out the window when he loads an explosive cannonball into his blunderbuss
- While the Sharpshooter’s rifle reload does look the most logical (powder, bullet, ramrod) he does not fill powder into the flashpan.
- Horny Vikings: Averted — the Vikings have realistic helmets.
- Hitscan: Averted – Bullets are projectiles and Sharpshooters may have to lead their shots.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The powder keg, complete with audible hiss from the fuse. If you're not a Pirate, that's your cue to start running.
- Knight in Shining Armor: The Heavy Knight
- Large Ham: Each team has its own announcer. All three of them are delightfully hammy. Here, have a taste of some Pirate
, Viking, and Knight ham. - Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Several classes have a shield they can use to block projectiles. They do break after taking enough damage, though.
- The Musketeer: The Pirates (with the exception of the Sharpshooter) do most of their damage in melee range, using their guns to either finish off their foes or deal poke damage from afar.
- Major Injury Underreaction: The Pirate Captain, when gravely wounded, will often say "Don't mind me, just bleedin' ta death here."
- The Medic: Though there is a voice command to call for one, they haven't yet been implemented. Each faction will get one, the 'Ealer, the Seidkona and the Cleric.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
- Perpetual Beta: The game has been in "beta" phase since it's public release in 2007. Not that it isn't pretty fun already.
- Pirate Booty: Of course, it's called booty by the Pirates themselves. Knights just call it treasure and the Vikings gold.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The ruins found in bt_forgotten.
- Rule of Cool: The entire basis for the game.
- Shifting Sand Land: The map tw_desertruin takes place in… well… a bunch of ruins in the desert.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The Captain’s blunderbuss is a prime example, with anything but a meatshot dealing only Scratch Damage.
- The Skirmisher is About to Shoot You!
- Talk Like a Pirate: The pirates, naturally.
- Temple of Doom: The Trinket Wars map tw_temple takes place in one of these, Booby Traps included.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: As of a version 3.1, all classes received this ability. It can be useful to dodge projectiles or throw an enemy off, but used incorrectly, it can also put you in a very vulnerable position.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: The Berserker and Viking announcer both speak with a strange, unidentifiable accent that sounds kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger if he was really pissed off.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The Knights are rather fond of speaking in this manner.Heavy Knight: Thine armaments art as poor as thy hygiene!Archer: I shall send mine arrow through thine head!Announcer: Thy laziness offends me verily! Claim land for the Britons!
