Pirates!
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:20 pm
As I just mentioned to Atheist, my brother gave me the DVD Special Edition of the new Sid Meyer's Pirates! It's nice. BTW, the "special edition" bit means it has some extra materials, like interviews and graphics stuff, and a complete version of Pirates! Gold (the last facelift of the series, when they made it Windows-compatible, I believe).
If you liked the old Pirates, well, here it is again, fit for today's hardware. The overall gameplay is superficially identical to the old one. You'll like it.
If you're not familiar with Pirates, at first glance it looks really cool. When you play or watch for a little while, though, you notice that there's a lot of same old, same old repetitiveness going on in the game. Then if you play a little longer you find that the challenge isn't just doing something, it's doing EVERYTHING. And doing it well.
You start as an 18-year old European, who was orphaned ten years ago and whose family remnants were sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Your driving factor at this point is revenge, and the faint hope of finding your family. You choose one of four nationalities, a difficulty level, and a time period to start in. On the journey to the New World, you join/lead a mutiny against the harsh captain, take over the ship, and poof, your career as a pirate has begun.
The four nations which have colonized the Caribbean at this point (England, France, Spain, and Holland) have frequent wars and outbreaks of peace during the game. By attacking a nation's enemies, you make them happy and get promoted by their governors. Governors of various-sized cities can not only promote you, but give you various missions (maybe half a dozen types?) and introduce you to their daughters, which come in plain, attractive, and beautiful. It's easier to please a plain girl than an attractive one, but you'll get nowhere if you can't dance. Yup, dance. When a girl finds you interesting (beautiful daughters require you to rank as a Baron of their nation before they find you interesting) they'll ask you to the ball. If you dance well, romance blooms and you can get tips, gifts of special items, map fragments, or even a new wife after enough time.
Let me back up a minute. For much of the game, you're sailing your ship around. Your speed depends on the type of ship and the amount of damage, not to mention the wind direction and any local storms/clouds. You can attack other ships here, land at a port, or land elsewhere and walk around. You'd do the latter to find your relatives or buried treasure. Oh, and if a port doesn't like you, you can't land there. They'll fire cannon at you and you can run or attack their garrison on land, which is like a mini turn-based wargame. Attacking a ship at sea is pretty obvious, but you usually have to duel the enemy captain in a rousing swordfight with one of three classes of swords. The things you can do in a port are Visit the Governor, Shipwright, Merchant, or Tavern. A shipwright will fix, buy or upgrade your ships. A merchant will buy your ill-gotten plunder or sell you stuff you need (like food), but may not if you're not well-liked by his nation. In a tavern, you can buy special items or get tips from a mysterious traveler, get tips from the buxom barmaid, get tips from the bartender, and recruit crewmen. Oh, and sometimes you can duel someone there, too.
There are a number of skills you can choose from at the start. Choose wisely, you get one to last the whole game. Skills include fencing, doctor (to extend your lifespan/career), navigation (to increase your sailing speed) and others. There are a lot of special items, from medicine to extend your life to fencing shirts to pistols to spyglasses and secret rutters. Oh, and pretty, expensive baubles helpful for winning the heart of a governor's daughter.
There's something here for everyone, really, but if you only like part of what the game offers you may not find it enjoyable overall. If you like a mix of things, something that doesn't fit a single genre well, you should probably have a look. Threre's really not much to complain about though - the graphics and sound are great, although there's a point on the learning curve where it seems to get monotonous. It's very much a do-what-you-will type of game with no best path through, but there are lots of quest leads so you never want for guidance.
Game of the year? Not with HL and DOOM and other high-profile games out there. But it's worthy of a good solid hit, and possibly tops in its category. Whatever that might be...
If you liked the old Pirates, well, here it is again, fit for today's hardware. The overall gameplay is superficially identical to the old one. You'll like it.
If you're not familiar with Pirates, at first glance it looks really cool. When you play or watch for a little while, though, you notice that there's a lot of same old, same old repetitiveness going on in the game. Then if you play a little longer you find that the challenge isn't just doing something, it's doing EVERYTHING. And doing it well.
You start as an 18-year old European, who was orphaned ten years ago and whose family remnants were sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Your driving factor at this point is revenge, and the faint hope of finding your family. You choose one of four nationalities, a difficulty level, and a time period to start in. On the journey to the New World, you join/lead a mutiny against the harsh captain, take over the ship, and poof, your career as a pirate has begun.
The four nations which have colonized the Caribbean at this point (England, France, Spain, and Holland) have frequent wars and outbreaks of peace during the game. By attacking a nation's enemies, you make them happy and get promoted by their governors. Governors of various-sized cities can not only promote you, but give you various missions (maybe half a dozen types?) and introduce you to their daughters, which come in plain, attractive, and beautiful. It's easier to please a plain girl than an attractive one, but you'll get nowhere if you can't dance. Yup, dance. When a girl finds you interesting (beautiful daughters require you to rank as a Baron of their nation before they find you interesting) they'll ask you to the ball. If you dance well, romance blooms and you can get tips, gifts of special items, map fragments, or even a new wife after enough time.
Let me back up a minute. For much of the game, you're sailing your ship around. Your speed depends on the type of ship and the amount of damage, not to mention the wind direction and any local storms/clouds. You can attack other ships here, land at a port, or land elsewhere and walk around. You'd do the latter to find your relatives or buried treasure. Oh, and if a port doesn't like you, you can't land there. They'll fire cannon at you and you can run or attack their garrison on land, which is like a mini turn-based wargame. Attacking a ship at sea is pretty obvious, but you usually have to duel the enemy captain in a rousing swordfight with one of three classes of swords. The things you can do in a port are Visit the Governor, Shipwright, Merchant, or Tavern. A shipwright will fix, buy or upgrade your ships. A merchant will buy your ill-gotten plunder or sell you stuff you need (like food), but may not if you're not well-liked by his nation. In a tavern, you can buy special items or get tips from a mysterious traveler, get tips from the buxom barmaid, get tips from the bartender, and recruit crewmen. Oh, and sometimes you can duel someone there, too.
There are a number of skills you can choose from at the start. Choose wisely, you get one to last the whole game. Skills include fencing, doctor (to extend your lifespan/career), navigation (to increase your sailing speed) and others. There are a lot of special items, from medicine to extend your life to fencing shirts to pistols to spyglasses and secret rutters. Oh, and pretty, expensive baubles helpful for winning the heart of a governor's daughter.
There's something here for everyone, really, but if you only like part of what the game offers you may not find it enjoyable overall. If you like a mix of things, something that doesn't fit a single genre well, you should probably have a look. Threre's really not much to complain about though - the graphics and sound are great, although there's a point on the learning curve where it seems to get monotonous. It's very much a do-what-you-will type of game with no best path through, but there are lots of quest leads so you never want for guidance.
Game of the year? Not with HL and DOOM and other high-profile games out there. But it's worthy of a good solid hit, and possibly tops in its category. Whatever that might be...
