Pirates was a game that I cherished as a kid on my Commodore 64. When I found out they were making a new PC release version I was stoked! Sid Meier's Pirates! makes many many improvements to the old game "system" while naturally enhancing it's graphic and audio capabilities. Included in the game is a sort of "loot system" in which you can acquire specialized items which will help in your buccaneering, which might be won by dancing well with a governor's daughter or purchased from a shady character in a tavern. Did I mention dancing? Why yes, the courting of governors daughters is now much more elaborate which involves actually dance scenes which you can do well or poorly. Repeated successful visitations will usually prompt your lady to ask for a ring or necklace as a symbol of your love, which you might acquire elsewhere. You move on to dueling her jealous fiance, and all sorts of other fun quests. But let's skip the mushy stuff, on to combat! There have been several versions of "Pirates!" released since the original commodore game. However none of them have had ship combat with quite the same feel. It is usually too rushed or just seems wrong in some way. Thankfully this new release of Pirates has "hit the nail on the head" when it comes to ship combat. New aspects include grape shot for shearing down crew and chain shot for breaking sails and masts thus limiting manouverability. Ship destruction sequences include explosions and buckles and sinkings accompanied by men jumping into the water to save themselves. Sword fighting was kept rather simple in mechanic, but now includes fantastic looking cut-scene quality backgrounds with raging fires, pirates locked in combat, pitching decks... it's truly awesome looking. You end up doing alot of sword combat in the game and may grow tired of the intro and out-tro sequences of sword combat, but they are easily skippable right into the action with a left mouse click. Land combat is improved into a turn based strategy style game. Once you learn the rules you will find yourself conquering numerically superior armies with a little tact. They are the longest combat sequences, but the rewards are almost always worth it. A tip for you town taking swashbucklers: stop in a pirate haven and direct them to attack a town with a heavy garrison. follow the pirate ship in and they will take a good chunk of the militia to Davy Jones' Locker. The game is relatively bug free. There are 2 that stand out rather plainly, but have workarounds. One may not be a bug, but basically you end up fighting "The Evil Baron Raymondo" over and over for bits of information on your entire long lost family. If you rescue them all expect to fight him about 20 times. Is this the only guy in the entire carribean that knows anything about your family? The other bug is when you are on land looking for treasure and have your telescope out and are returned to your ship, game time slows to a crawl until you go back to land, turn your telescope off and continue your journey. I give Pirates a 10 for gameplay, since it's fun, easy to learn, and works fantastic. Graphics I give a 9, they are truly beautiful. I've seen better, but they are awesome Sound, 9, sounds great but music is a little midi-ish. Nostalgic but could have been better. Value, 7, you get some replayability in this game, but not as much as I'd have hoped. Reviewer's Tilt, 10, cause I LOVE PIRATES!
When I began playing 'Pirates!' I was captivated by the colourful graphics and allround atmosphere of the game. But slowly, as the hours past by, I realized there wasn't nearly enough to do and that the game was extremel... Read Full Review
Sid Meier's Pirates! is one of the few games that caught the essence of its predecessor and mixed with new technological features to create a magnificent game, both on gameplay and graphics, and why to do not mention, th... Read Full Review
