Sid Meier's Pirates!

"Arrr!!"

Sid Meier's Pirates! Originally started life as a Commodore 64 game of the same name, minus the Sid Meier's bit of course, and was truly the breaking point in the Sandbox game genre, as you decided how you would play the game.

You start out the game with a ship and a crew – these vary depending on which nationality you choose, and which time period you choose.

Graphics

Considering that this version of Pirates is a port of a PC and Xbox game released a few years before, the graphics are nice. When you are sailing around the Caribbean, you can see the detail in the water and the landscapes that you come across, as well as in the ships. The characters are also designed well and have a unique cartoon look about them.

However, when you enter a town and start sneaking around, this is only when said town rather dislikes you, the graphics are… Well… terrible. Only in this part of the game are the graphics bad. They look like the graphics you would find on a poor mobile phone game. Come on 2K!! Think of what you could have achieved with the PSP's graphical potential!

Gameplay

The gameplay in my opinion is excellent. There are no set missions and you do not have to do anything really. While there is somewhat of a story, you do not actually have to follow it at all.

You are simply given a ship and a crew from the start, and from here you do whatever the heck you want to do. You could go and find your family, which takes a lot of effort and time, or you could simply so plundering! Sinking ships, capturing ships or destroying towns… Again, it is all up to you.

A cool added feature is that if you do not keep your crew happy, they… Well. Abandon you! You will lose your crew, ships… everything, and you start all over again, with little money, little food, and just a few crewmen.

When you enter a town, to navigate you just have a menu with what options are available at the time. This could have been more detailed, such as actually walking around to different shops and taverns, but hey… What can you do?

Multiplayer

Sid Meier's Pirates has a cool Ad Hoc multiplayer mode where you and up to 3 other friends, providing they have a copy of the game also, can battle it out on board a pirate ship to see who is truly the greatest pirate.

Overall

Overall Pirates is a very good Sandbox game that you could put a lot of time into. It has good replay value due to the very different time periods you can choose to play in, reasonably good graphics and great gameplay.

Definitely deserves the 7/10 I am giving it. Why only 7? Read the review again, poor graphics at times, and limited options whilst in towns.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/24/09, Updated 07/27/09

Game Release: Sid Meier's Pirates! (EU, 03/09/07)