"Most Definitely Worth The Booty"

Introduction
Sid Meier's Pirates! is easily one of the most fun games I've played in quite some time. It's simple, yet incredibly entertaining gameplay will keep you sailing the high seas for some time.

Graphics
Pirates! really excels in this area. It really brings the Caribbean to life with rich vibrant colors, and lots of little details. For example, during fights, you'll see crew members fall off the ships and barrels of loot go flying. Sails get ripped and torn, and eventually fall off. It's truly exhilarating to survive a fight against an enormous flagship in your little tiny sloop.

Sound
The sound is excellent. The music has a light, island-y feel, and when your crew is happy, they sing the requisite pirate songs. All the battle sound effects sound great; with the volume raised in a battle between a pair of huge galleons, you'll be hunched over your keyboard, as if it will keep you safe from the enemy's grapeshot.

Story
Nothing original here, and you don't actually have to do the main quests unless you feel like it. When you're a boy, your family is captured by an evil Marquis, and you escape into a life of pirating aboard the high seas. You get command of the ship after a mutiny, and from there, you are free to do as you please.

There are a couple of decisions you make when you start a new game. For one, you choose your nation of origin from four nations, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English. This affects which ports will be open to you at first, but it makes little difference, as you can become friendly with any nation by attacking their enemies and helping their cities against pirates. Also, you can choose which time you start in, which determines the location and sizes of several ports, and what sort of ship you start out with.

One of my big gripes here is the lack of character customization. I'd have liked to be able to create my pirate and give him different hats and jackets, like the cool pirates you'll see on the high seas. But this isn't a big deal, as your pirate looks thoroughly cool and heroic.

Gameplay
This is where Pirates! really excels, and also falls sort of short. There's a couple different gameplay modes, and all are simple to control and fun to play.

The first part is the sailing mode, where you sail your ship, or ships as the case may be, across the sea, looking for ships to capture and towns to plunder. There's a lot of towns, and you'll have to make good use of the wind if you want to get anywhere fast. Sometimes, though, this can be somewhat annoying. West to East and North to South journeys occasionally seem to take eons. When you come across a port, just sail into it, or if you find a ship, you'll see a blinking option for you to attack it.

Once you choose to attack a ship, you go into a battle, where your flagship (all your other ships don't participate in the battle), and the enemy ship go head to head. You can get multiple upgrades and different kinds of cannons for your ship, with each doing different kind of damage. Once you fight, or not, if you want to capture your enemy's ship (and booty) intact, you'll crash together and initiate a duel between you and the enemy captain, or if you've made the other guy sufficiently afraid, he'll wave the white flag and surrender.

Ah, dueling. While this is easily one of the more fun parts of the game, it's also one of the aspects that really bring it down. When you open the battle, you can pick which sword you use, and then you'll see a cutscene of you and the other captain firing pistols (if you have any), drawing swords, and beginning to fight. The only problem here is that all of these cutscenes look exactly alike, with maybe three or four variations. This is true of the cutscenes that end the fight as well. All that aside, the duels are a lot of fun, and on higher difficulties they can be very challenging. You have three basic attacks, and three blocking moves. If you hit them in the right combination, you'll force your opponent overboard. Also cool are the special effects, like when you're near a rope, you'll swing off it and hit your enemy.

When you've captured enough ships, and have enough men, you need to go somewhere to get rid of all the merchandise and fix up your ship. So you hit one of the many towns and settlements dotting the Caribbean. In each town you'll find a tavern, where you can go and recruit crews and get information from barmaids, a merchant who you can sell different goods to, and a shipwright who will fix and upgrade your ship.

Also in each town is a Governor, who will give you promotions that allow for things like cheaper trade in his country's cities, missions like escorting ships carrying important documents, and if you impress him enough, you can take his daughter to a ball and even marry her.

The dancing scenes are a pleasant departure from the combat oriented portions of the game. They're reminiscent of Dance Dance Revolution, minus the club music and flashing arrows; instead, you're guided along by the young lady's hand.

When you approach a town that's hostile to you, you'll find the option to sack it. When you sack a town, it goes into a Civilization-esque turn-based strategy, where you send you men across the board in order to eliminate the city's garrison, and reach the walls. This is a profitable venture, often yielding lots of gold, and the chance to install a Governor from a nation of your choice.

Controls
All of Pirates' different mini-games and modes control very simply, with only the numberpad and a mouse being necessary.

Replay Value
Pirates! is loads of fun to play again and again. Each career can last about ten or so hours, maybe more, depending on how you play, until your pirate gets to old, and is forced into retirement, at which point the game takes a look at your achievements and gives you a final rating. Each career will be quite different, depending on whether you play privateer or smuggler, or peaceful trader. Also varying from game to game is the location of lots of smaller cities and hidden ruins and such. Pirates! isn't leaving my hard drive anytime soon.

Overall
Sid Meier's Pirates! is a great game that will keep you occupied for hours and hours upon end, though a lack of variety in some of the cutscenes and a lack of character customization keeps it from really being legendary. If you're looking to satisfy your pirate fix, you'll find none better, on any platform.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/05