Sid Meier’s Pirates!

As many other reviews have said, this is a fairly shallow game, with few real mechanics and a bunch of mini-games. The story is paper thin, the visual style is OK, but nothing remarkable. But man, it is A METRIC TON of fun! Yes, it's repetitive; but it doesn't matter because I can basically feel the sweet sea breeze as I sail out of a port in a new ship with a band of vicious pirates behind me, to find out what kind of trouble I can get myself into this season. Yes, the mini-games get annoying, but a lot of them are not really mandatory (as far as I can remember) so you can take a break from some for a while. Yes, the world has very little permanence, but it's so damn charming, and you start to feel like you're in an actual place after a while. I loved getting involved in wars as a privateer and taking over forts and cities and such. I would plan my whole seasonal activity around that: plunder ships so I can get a lot of crew in, high morale, all that, and then trek through the jungle so I can attach a city from the rear where they least expect it. Again, as other reviews have said, if you're looking for a realistic or hardcore or deeply strategic experience, this is probably not the game for you. But if you're looking for a happy-go-lucky take on the Pirates of the Whatever kind of media, it can be an excellent time.

I do not own GoG version. But I have owned the original game since 05-06. The play disc is in the tray right now as I just played it yesterday. For some reason I was hooked from the get go, I find it relaxing and fun, despite it's repetition. It's solid and stable unlike many newer games, It has worked, patched, in every single Microworm OS without nothing more then capability settings. I use/play it for eye/hand coordination exercising.

For a more in-depth video review, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oZ9XZ_Wzfc Fair warning: if you use a numpadless keyboard you're in for a world of hurt, since its binds are all set to those and can't be rebinded. You can still use a mouse on what's essentially a virtual in-game keyboard, but in mini-games you're screwed. This is a remake of Sid Meier's original Pirates from the 80s. In that sense, it's a graphical update of the same game. You can raid ships, sell cargo, search for treasures, attack cities to plunder, and so on. Its corny artstyle is nice to look at, and it helped the game avoid looking dated even after more than 15 years. Unfortunately, this remake introduced a sort of a story. I mean, that's not the problem, it's the mechanics it introduces alongside it. You're portraying a character that needs to rescue his long-lost family who lost all their wealth and became imprisoned by an evil Marquis. This implies the same thing - find 4 pieces of a map and go rescue them, but they all imply attacking the same character over and over again. It's a bit ridiculous that the game pretends that you interrogate this guy for any scrap of information he has about your relatives' whereabouts, but in reality he knows the location of ALL your relatives from the start. It's just that the game requires you to perform the same thing for 16 times. The rest of the game tends to be repetitive as well, but to its credit, the game doesn't force you to do anything. You have absolute free reign, and quite a few activities to perform. Ironically, the only new addition, escaping from a city's prison, is also by far the weakest mini-game. But regardless, for 1-2 playthroughs it can be an enjoyable experience, before the feeling of repetitiveness settles.

I was in high school when I heard about this game and I started playing it right away. I find the game both simple and challenging in many different aspects. The style of play is simple enough to understand but you need to do a lot of familiarizing if you want to be able to find locations easier. Sailing is something I find boring because of the lengthy voyage but then again, that's a pirate's life. Trading for goods is also a nice way of using the storage haul of your ship/s but I prefer taking it from other ships because it pays well ( :D ) Treasure hunting is easy if you can follow the map correctly. Having options of being incredibly loyal to your first choice of voyage or being something else makes the game interesting although it's hard to maintain your neutral state especially when you want to ransack colonies. The only trouble I ever had is by the time I needed to search for an Incan temple near Gran Granada but that's about it. It's also nice that you have the capability of switching game difficulty after dividing the plunder. The daughters of governors and all and trying to dance with them is nice for me too especially when they start giving me favors. I remember back then being able to find all my family members but now that I've installed this again after many years, I can't seem to get pass aging and I can't find all of them in time, I may need more practice. 5 stars for such a throwback game. Nice one.

#Summary (70%): ‘Pirates!’ is colourful, fun, and a fantastic game, at least in short bursts. If you want to play the entire story mode, it becomes too simplistic, stale, and repetitive, though. #Review: ‘Sid Meier’s Pirates!’ is a cult classic, both in its original form and in this faithful 3D reimagination. It embodies every single pirate adventure fantasy any child ever had. Do you want to partake in acrobatic sword fights? Do you wish to search for pirate treasure and Inca gold? Do you want to sail the Caribbean, plundering ships or capturing enemy towns in the name of the Crown? This game has plenty of each. ‘Pirates!’ is all about giving freedom to the player. We can do whatever we want, the entire Caribbean is our playground. We can trade, plunder, conquer, or barter. We can jump allegiances faster than a stockbroker. We are also not hampered by any kind of story since the game has none. We are a young man whose family was kidnapped… and that is it. We search for them while getting filthy rich. That sums up the entire plot. On the flip side, ‘Pirates!’ is barely more than an endless stream of minigames interwoven by long sea trips. Are you visiting a port? Prepare for a dance minigame, a duel minigame, or both. Did you accept a mission from someone? Well, it will always end up in at least one naval battle, so more duel minigames. No matter what you do, the game is sailing, dancing, and duels. Sometimes there is some variety when you sneak into a town, search for treasure, or attack a settlement. The thing is, those minigames are not fun. They are bad, frankly. I swear it is easier to increase your relationship by hunting a dozen pirates than sneaking around in town. As a whole, I admit that ‘Pirates!’ is fun. I would go as far as saying that it is still the best of its kind to this day. Still, it is only fun for a few hours at best before the self-repeating grind starts to wear you out.