Another month is winding down as February goes into the sunset. It’s now time for a brand new batch of titles to be refreshed for your various subscription services, including Games With Gold. March’s list has now been revealed, and while it’s certainly lower profile than the last few months, there is some interesting stuff here.

This month it seems there will be no original Xbox title, instead being two Xbox One and two Xbox 360 titles. For the entire month, we’ll get Warface: Breakout, a tactical shooter. From March 1st-15th, there will be Metal Slug 3 from the classic side scroller series, from the 16th to the 31st will be Port Royale 3 and then finally from March 16th to April 15th there will be Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse, which is… quite the title. Odds are you probably aren’t too familiar with some of these, so you can check out the video showcasing them below.

These games will be available to all Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers starting March 1st.

About Port Royale 3:

Game Overview:

Dawn of Pirates offers you a whole new single-player campaign in which you get to stir up trouble in the Caribbean – as a pirate. Your aim in this DLC is to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean by raiding and plundering unsuspecting cities and poorly guarded convoys on the high seas. A new pirate-themed campaign offer players the chance to enjoy Port Royale 3 from the view of one of their most challenging foes.

Publisher: Kalypso Media

Platforms: PC, PS3 and X360

Release Date: Already Released

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

Essentially, you’ll be playing a pirate in Dawn of Pirates and your aim is to become the worst of the worst in your quest to plunder the Caribbean. But that’s not all. There’s also a new “Ironman” mode that lets you play through the campaign without save-points.

Kind of like the old days only with less chances of sleep.

But it brings plenty of opportunity for bragging rights. There’s also an online ranking system that features a global high score list for both Normal and Ironman modes. So that you can see which one of you had a longer weekend to kill. Check it out today.

Kalypso Media has announced that Port Royale 3 Harbour Master DLC is now available for the PC version of Pirates & Merchants.

It is purely a cosmetic DLC which adds new buildings, decorative objects for your cities and you can also gain access to an economic adviser to give you useful hints. Sounds good? You can also control defense of your cities and build fleets.

The DLC will be available for 4.49 pounds and you can download it via Kalypso launcher within the Pirates & Merchants game.

In Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, players will embark upon an epic adventure through the Caribbean during the turbulent 17th century where the naval powers of Spain, England, France and the Netherlands all fight for supremacy in the colonies. Players take on the role of a young captain trying to build his fortune and reputation in the new world colonies. The campaign consists of two different paths for the young protagonist to follow: adventurer and trader.

Features:

• Six new buildings (including embassy, fire department and more)
• Decorative objects such as plants, statues and various types of street coverings
• More control over city defensive lines
• An economic adviser to assist players in making financial choices
• The ability to build your own ships

About Port Royale 3:

Game Overview:

In Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, players will embark upon an epic adventure through the Caribbean during the turbulent 17th century where the naval powers of Spain, England, France and the Netherlands all fight for supremacy in the colonies. Players take on the role of a young captain trying to build his fortune and reputation in the new world colonies. The campaign consists of two different paths for the young protagonist to follow: adventurer and trader.

Publisher: Kalypso Media

Developer: Gaming Minds

Platforms: PC, PS3 and X360

Release Date: Already released.

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

About Port Royale 3:

Game Overview:

In Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants, players will embark upon an epic adventure through the Caribbean during the turbulent 17th century where the naval powers of Spain, England, France and the Netherlands all fight for supremacy in the colonies. Players take on the role of a young captain trying to build his fortune and reputation in the new world colonies. The campaign consists of two different paths for the young protagonist to follow: adventurer and trader.

Publisher: Kalypso Media

Developer: Kalypso Media

Platforms: PC, PS3 and X360

Release Date: 7/9/2012

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

So, before we go any further, I believe it bears merit to actually try and describe what kind of a game Port Royale 3 is. Self described as a ‘strategy’ game, and variously referred to as a ‘simulator’ and an ‘adventure’ game, I believe it’s none of those three, but somehow a mixture of all of them. Think Sid Meier’s Pirates (an excellent game, by the way, and one that I whole heartedly recommend), and you’ve got a rough idea. Unfortunately, where Pirates was absolutely brilliant, Port Royale 3 seems to falter somewhat in several key areas. In other areas, it seems to make no sense, as some of the mechanics it introduces- such as the ‘popularity’ system (why am I, as a trader, concerned about my popularity?)- fail to add anything meaningful to the gameplay at all. In spite of that, it plays decently, and will actually end up taking more of your time than you’d imagine. Eventually, you’ll stop playing and realize you just spent hours on the game. You’ll then stop and wonder how it managed to do that.

Port Royale 3 is a game that allows you to play two ways- either as an adventurer, or as a trader. The former option is where the most tedious mechanics of the game show up most often, such as the combat, or the missions that mandate you sailing through the empty Caribbean seas as you hunt down some rogue pirate ship in a vague rescue mission.

On the other hand, you can choose to focus on just trading, and this is ultimately where the game begins to show its strength. It’s not a convincing economy simulator, and it can often be a bit too simplistic, but it is incredibly addictive. Of course, you might ask yourself why you would be interested in playing a glorified economics 101 sim in the first place, but the simple answer is, it’s fun and it’s addictive, and almost unexpectedly so. You have several ports, and you can buy or sell goods on each port. You can either buy them in bulk, thereby reducing the total amount of good in supply locally, causing its prices to rise (this means you can sell your own goods for a tidy profit), or you can try and sell them in bulk, causing prices to crash as you flood the market. Generally, these turn out to be zero sum strategies, and you will be better served trying to trade in more reasonable quantities across different ports.

The model is demanding and exacting, sometimes unfairly so. The game requires a healthy amount of wealth for you to accomplish anything meaningful, but the economic model of the game forbids you from earning any reasonable gold in anything less than a few hours. Trading, while fun, tends to get tedious after a while, and might prompt you to eventually undertake one of the previously mentioned missions, to set out on an ‘adventure’ to break the monotony. Unfortunately, that in itself entails aimless wandering, and then some combat that, while requiring a bit of foresight and planning (the outcome is predicated on pre determined stats, such as the number of weapons your ship and crew have, and their distribution), it feels completely uninvolved, since you don’t seem to have any immediate effect for that very reason.

Ultimately, Port Royale 3 is a game of missed opportunities. The combat, the trading, the ‘adventuring,’ all seem to be sound in theory but flawed in execution. Some of its mechanics are absolutely nonsensical, and add nothing to the game whatsoever and even detract from it, like the popularity system. And it can be mind numbingly banal. And yet somehow, you pour hours into it before you catch yourself. It might not be the best game ever made, but it does take up a lot of your time. At least you can’t accuse it of being poor value for money.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Kalypso’s line-up thus far for Gamescom 2012 includes:

Legends of Pegasus (PC)
The Dark Eye: Demonicon (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC)
Dark (PC and Xbox 360)
Omerta: City of Gangsters (PC and Xbox 360)
Port Royale 3 (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3)
Alien Spidy (PSN, Xbox Live and PC)
Dollar Dash (PSN, Xbox Live and PC)

Of these titles, Omerta: City of Gangsters and The Dark Eye: Demonicon will be playable via consoles and PC during the Con.

They may sound relatively unknown but Kalypso has been behind quite a number of titles since it’s inception in 2006, either as publisher or developer.

These include Tropic 3 & 4, Sins of a Solar Empire, Theater of War, Disciples III, The First Templar, Boulder Dash XL, Galactic Civilizations and much much more.

It’ll be interesting to see what they unveil at this year’s Gamescom.

In this walk through video the developers have introduced economics and politics in the game, showcasing the depth and accessibility of both, in Port Royale 3.

{layers will embark upon an adventure through the Caribbean during the turbulent 17th century where the naval powers of Spain, England, France and the Netherlands all fight for supremacy in the colonies. Players take on the role of a young captain trying to build his fortune and reputation in the new world colonies. The campaign consists of two different paths for the young protagonist to follow: adventurer and trader.

In free-play mode, the player crafts a combination of the two paths, creating a unique and challenging scenario on the path to increase wealth and power.

The game is due for the PC.

Kalypso have released new walkthrough video for Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, the upcoming empire building game.

In this new video, you will learn about the construction and management of sailing ships and merchant convoys, along with getting a taste of the game’s exciting naval combat system. Download the video from the link below to get a first-hand look at Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, the latest in the line of titles that set the standard in the trading simulation genre. Kalypso will release Port Royale 3 on Windows PC and consoles this summer.

Features of Port Royale 3 are:

• Two different single player campaigns: Adventurer and Trader
• Naval battles, raids, plundering and invasions await the Adventurer, while the Trader will develop trade routes and the economy to earn glory, fortune and power
• 16 different ship types, such as powerful Galleons or versatile Frigates
• Organize trade with 60 different cities such as Port-au-Prince or Tortuga
• A comprehensive trade system, with supply and demand dynamically setting the price of goods and wares, like in the real world

Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.