Released in 1987 when I was a scant two years old, the original Sid Meier¡¯s Pirates gave would-be swashbucklers the opportunity to live the life of a buccaneer from home. In 2005, the summer of the remakes as it would be, 2K Games has released the Xbox port of a PC remake. While the idea may sound incredibly rehashed the total package is no worse for the wear. In a slump-ish summer with few hits about, Pirates slides in under the radar to provide an ultra-addictive adventure on the high seas.
Released in 1987 when I was a scant two years old, the original Sid Meier¡¯s Pirates gave would-be swashbucklers the opportunity to live the life of a buccaneer from home. In 2005, the summer of the remakes as it would be, 2K Games has released the Xbox port of a PC remake. While the idea may sound incredibly rehashed the total package is no worse for the wear. In a slump-ish summer with few hits about, Pirates slides in under the radar to provide an ultra-addictive adventure on the high seas.
Living the life of a scallywag
The story behind Pirates is basic and just the thing to drive this type of game. At age 8, the hero¡¯s family is kidnapped by an evil Spanish noble on the eve of an economic breakthrough. The ship that was carrying their entire life was attacked at sea and the debt is due. The unnamed hero escapes and grows into a strong seafarer in search of adventure, revenge, riches, fame, and everything else a young pirate could desire.
The term ¡°sandbox¡± has been used to describe plenty of games in the past. Never before, however, has the term fit better than with Pirates. After acquiring the initial the player can do whatever he wants. Period. Want to avenge your family and catch up their assailant? A long string of quests awaits while you pursue him across the Caribbean. Want to simply pick on the Dutch for a while? Go ahead, the option is there. Fancy that saucy daughter of the Governor in Barbados? Cut a mean rug and win her affection. Players can bounce between open quests seamlessly and work as a privateer for their favorite country in the meantime.
In fact, at times the game feels like there is TOO much to do. The lifetime of a hero usually spans 8-15 hours game-time, depending on a number of factors. If rescuing your family while chasing the games only antagonist is the goal, players should stick to the plan with little distraction. While it may be slightly annoying that you can¡¯t clean the game with one pirate run it ups the replay value exponentially.
Raising the Jolly Rogers
As far as gameplay is concerned Pirates is best described as a collection of collection of mini-games attached to an overall map. What keeps the ney sayers at bay is that all these actions are easy to pick up and play while containing plenty of depth to keep experienced swashbucklers on their toes.
When entering a battle with another ship, the game controls like a dream. Players can upgrade their ships with different weapons that do different types of damage for any given situation. Looking to simply sink a ship? Use the round shot (Default). Your ship a little quicker but short on manpower? Use the chain-shot to knock down their masts and flee to fight another day. Fancy that new treasure galleon and the gold you can get for selling it? The grape-shot is the anti-personnel shotgun of the 17th Century. These different shots, along with variable winds and the occasional escort ship, set up excellent and addicting sea battles that surpass anything seen in previous pirate-themed titles.
These subtle nuances fail to infiltrate the remaining ¡°mini-games.¡± Despite this, Dueling and Dancing do nothing to detract from the overall gameplay experience. Dueling is, quite frankly, way too easy in just about every case. If you know what your doing, the only time duels become difficult is on the highest difficulty level after your pirate has began to slow down from old age. Dancing is quite the opposite. On the higher difficulty levels dancing is much too frustrating when you consider the fact that the daughters you dance with offer very little past their hand in marriage. I stayed away from romance as often as I could, stopping in port for the ladies only when my quest required it.
Where's my parot?
Graphically, Pirates fails to either disappoint or impress. Environments are fluid and colorful but the ocean is repetitive and uninteresting. While your pirate shows signs of aging as he goes on in years, more options in customization would have been a welcome sight. Out of the box, there are a scant 5 different types of flags for your ships. While you can download more over Xbox Live it doesn¡¯t help the limited selection from the start.
The sounds and the music of Pirates are fantastic on the other hand. The music follows the swashbuckler theme to the letter and entertains all the while. Repetition can get to a player after uber-extended periods of play, but this can be said for just about 90% of the world.
It¡¯s hard to believe that Pirates was on PC before Xbox since everything handles like a dream on console. The Xbox controller has been mapped perfectly and anyone with ten fingers (and even some with less) will be circling merchants and blasting away, smiling with a child-like glee all the while. Dueling is much easier on console than it was on PC with the keyboard. Everything simply feels more precise and intuitive. The ability to knock numbers down before a duel when steeply outnumbered is fun and a smart addition to the port.
While I could think of a few things that would have made Pirates a perfect ten, our scoring in spite of this should speak volumes of the title¡¯s quality. I have simply not had this much fun on console all summer. Pirates is this summer¡¯s sleeper hit in the usual lull before football and Christmas season and a must play for gamers and aspiring buccaneers alike.
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