Sid Meier's Pirates! Review

Insert witty pirate joke here. Okay, now that we have that taken care of, we can begin. It was back on April 30, 1987, that the now defunct software company, Microprose (Darklands, Civilization 1 and 2, and XCOM), released Sid Meier’s Pirates for the PC. Sid Meier is a gaming genius known for creating such memorable classics as Civilization and Alpha Centauri, to name a few. Interestingly enough, this latest envisioning of the Pirates franchise is actually the third incarnation if we consider Pirate’s Gold.

Pirate games have always had a place in my heart as well as many other gamer’s. When we think of a pirate, we think of sword fights on the high seas, giant caravels side by side engaged in bloody cannon battles, and about planks and lots walking them. From the Sid Meier’s Pirates series, to Dogs of War, Age of Sail 1 and 2, to last year’s game from Bethesda, Pirates of the Caribbean, we see a trend of quality pirate related games. Oh, and I would be thoughtless not to mention my favorite mighty pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, who sadly did not make an appearance in this game.

The story is a simple enough affair: as a child your parent’s hopes of financial success are ruined when their ship full of goods crashes on its way back to your hometown. As a result, they are forced into indentured servitude, but, before they can catch your character, he flees the area, vowing to reunite with his family some day as well as seek revenge for their plight. Sometime later, you are given the option to sign on with a sailing crew from an English, Dutch, French (complete with white flags for easy surrender), or a Spanish ship. Each country has various advantages and disadvantages to play from, but have no fear- your loyalties will change with the wind in this game….literally.

Gameplay
As a strategy game, be prepared for a lengthy breakdown of gameplay. For starters, this game is entirely open-ended meaning you can play for fighting or trading, whichever suits your fancy. There is really only a loose story to the game and essentially no real tutorial feature to the game creating a somewhat steep learning curve for the casual gamer.

From a play control standpoint, this game will task you with using both your keyboard and mouse to maneuver your ship on the high seas. While it may seem simple enough when you factor in the wind plus various natural impediments, you will quickly see that proper control is the key to winning in this game. With a full wind in your sails, you will essentially be set loose upon the high seas with no true goals other than to stay alive and make enough money to pay your crew. It’s really quite amazing how smooth and realistic the ship command is in this game. You will feel as though you are on the ocean and develop a sound understanding of how sailors harness the wind and its necessity for moving with any real speed, as well as become proficient at ship-based combat. I cannot state enough how much easier the combat is if you take the time to practice maneuvering on the seas. Learning how to wheel about swiftly as well as the shooting angles and types of shots that incur the most damage is crucial. Sometimes you will just want to sink you opponents, but quite often the key is to take them down with as little damage to their vessel as possible as you do want to accumulate a nice fleet after all. Of course, sometimes simply ramming your opponent and starting a battle aboard the ships can be quite rewarding.

Your first major interface is when you are in a port, be it a city, a settlement, Indian villages, church missions, or even a Pirate’s Haven. From this menu you will be presented with choices which vary based upon your location. Perhaps one of the more important options includes visiting a shipwright to sell, repair, or even upgrade your current vessel with stronger armor, better sails, and better weapons. You can visit a merchant in order to sell your cargo or buy more cargo to sell in other cities. The tavern is also the place to go for gossip which may shed light on where your adversaries are, find missing fugitives that you may have been tasked to bring in, buy gifts to impress the ladies, or just to add some good crew to your ships.

Other options come from visiting the governor or mayor’s house, where you are often promoted for your adventures, as well as given the opportunity to wow the fair hand of the governor’s daughter. This wooing takes the place of an old-school dance, a dance that takes the gameplay form of a rhythm game like Dance Dance Revolution. In this mini-game, you follow the hand movements of your prospective lady- the better you do the faster you make her heart go. Should you succeed, she will give you her large, beautiful….information and tips that often reveal the locations of top ten pirates and where they may be found.

Other mini-games include a sneaking game where you sneak into a hostile town under cover of darkness. This can be odd but fun, as you slink in the dark and knock out guards from behind before sneaking to the Governor’s residence. The final mini-game takes the form of the sword duel. In this duel between you and your enemy- often the enemy being the captain of another ship- you will utilize again the numeric keypad, which presents a variety of choices ranging from a chopping cut to jumping. While interesting and somewhat fun, these duels are usually not too difficult, assuming you pay attention to the patterns of your enemy. While doing these duels, you will see scenes where you duel up a staircase or even over a railing if you duel at the taverns.

Another area worth mentioning is how truly open-ended this game is. You will be able to play multiple lives worth of games and probably never find everything that there is to be found in this game. The decisions you make regarding which country’s ships you attack will ultimately have a significant impact on the entire power structure of the region. Helping defeat the Spaniards will have you fighting off Spanish Galleons and needing to sneak into Spanish towns in order to interact with them. You can even become an Admiral in the fleets of multiple countries, which in turn will increase your ability to trade more efficiently. Don’t be shocked if you hear people discussing your deed both good and bad in the taverns as well. Anger the masses too much, and you will find yourself unable to trade with entire towns.

You will find various items throughout the game which can assist you in your various tasks. You will sometimes capture an enemy ship only to discover that they have specially-skilled members from cooks to engineers who can help keep your ship running at max efficiency. There are certain items like jewelry which will help you in wooing the ladies you encounter. You’ll also find items to assist you in your dancing as well.

As your pirate becomes more seasoned and collects and divides more loot, you will go from novice rank into the more experienced captain ranks. This gaining of experience will enable you to fight with different weapons and use different tactics to beat your enemies. This level of customization is a welcome change and is necessary to master if you wish to become proficient.

Throughout the game you will find opportunities to do land-based missions. Some of these are done merely to gain access to landlocked towns, but others are completed because you are in search of either your family members or buried treasure. Acquiring buried treasure maps is a key way of gaining easy money, but beware of stealing the loot of a fellow pirate, for he will likely come looking to keel-haul something on you.

Finally, as you become more skilled at the game, you will earn a pirate score. This score will place you amongst the top 10 pirates of the high seas. As you take down each captain, your rank will improve, which in turn will increase the difficulty of your opponents and cause lesser ranked pirates to be looking to take you down for their score.

Graphics
Graphically this is an attractive, atmosphere-filled game. Although somewhat cartoonish, the graphics for your duels, sneaking, and dancing mini-games are nice to look at. This game is not complex graphically, but the level of detail on some of the ships and the ship animations are done quite well. The way the wind bellows off your sails or the cannons firing adds a proper level of realism to the game. The graphics do a great job of showing the results of your cannon attacks, from enemies and cargo going overboard to the devastating power of your grapeshot taking down the masts of your prey.

The land masses are well drawn but ultimately not something to write home about. Functionality is probably the best way to describe this game’s graphics. While not a crucial part of the game, they certainly do a great job of portraying the game and helping to set up its proper atmosphere and when one deals with a pirate game, atmosphere is everything.

Sound
One of the first things I noticed was that the characters in the game don’t really talk. It’s more a Sims type of gibberish with text thrown into so you can actually see what they are saying. Fortunately, the score of this game makes up for the lack of speech.

The musical score is rather good. It helps maintain the feeling of high adventure throughout the game, evoking the proper mental imagery of swashbuckling Errol Flynn-type pirates raiding the high seas for fame and fortune. The sound effects themselves also do an effective job of relaying your combat actions back to you, providing different sounds for how brutally your cannon fire damages your enemy’s ships, the sounds of the wind rustling through your sails, and, of course, the soothing sounds of the ocean itself. Strangely enough the one thing I rather enjoyed is a pirate song which basically features a medley of pirate sounding grunts and other sounds, minus actual words. Much like the graphics, the sounds of this game do not detract from the overall enjoyment. On the contrary, they tend to help immerse you in this rich pirate lifestyle.



Multiplayer
While a strong multiplayer component would have made for an interesting game, this game did not provide one. However, given the sheer amount of ways to play, it’s unlikely you will ever play it into the ground.

Replay Value
This game easily has one of the best replay values of any non-MMORPG on the market today. It’s very customizable and you have the options of playing through on a variety of difficulty levels. As mentioned earlier, on a game of this scale, it will easily take the careers of five to ten pirates to gain a more full understanding of the depth of this game and the different ways to excel at it.

Conclusion
Perhaps one of the most difficult things a game company can do is produce a modern day version of a classic game. The original game is so beloved in the hearts of gamers that a remake can often suffer by comparison; however, this incarnation of Sid Meier’s Pirates is likely to please the fans of the original version of this game. Its huge open-endedness does an excellent job of establishing the proper atmosphere while the balance of combat and economy produces a quality strategy title.

It does, however, have its problems. Open-ended gameplay can lead to a lack of focus, and this game is very light on tutorial, how-to material which creates a somewhat larger than average learning curve; preventing me from recommending Pirate’s to all gamers as a whole.

As a strategy title, this game is easily one of the best this year and is deep and involved enough for even the most serious of gamers. It’s good to see that Sid Meier is still churning out deep games after so many years.

Key High Points
- Very strong ship versus ship combat
- Open-ended game with numerous ways to play and enjoy it
- Features numerous entertaining mini-games

Key Low Points
- Lack of tutorials creates a sharper than average learning curve

Further Reading
- http://www.addictedtopirates.com/