Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Sid Meier's Pirates! Revenge of the Remake.

I love pirate games. Arrrrr.


The original Sid Meier’s Pirates! (installed off a 5 ½ inch floppy disk – anyone remember THOSE?), ate up hours of my time back in the late 80s. You sailed the high seas, bore down on treasure-laden ships, bombarded them, then swashbucklingly swung on board and engaged rival captains in dashing duels. You looted, played politics, flirted with lissome lasses, double-crossed greedy Government scum, and made a tidy profit. It was marvelous.


When Pirates! faded away, the Monkey Island games took over. Guybrush Threepwood, my Man! Laugh-out loud humour being the cornerstone, the games featured interesting plots, unforgettable characters (Murray, the talking skull has to be one of the funniest game characters ever.), lovely graphics and interesting puzzles. And of course, lots of Pirate action. Insult Sword Fighting. Unbearable coolness.


Now, it’s back to Sid Meier’s Pirates! Again, and in Technicolor.


The geniuses at Firaxis have, almost unbelievably, retained the EXACT same flavour and fun factor of the original, while adding just a wee bit to the gameplay and generally giving the game a this-century facelift. Does it work? Hoo, boy!


I’ve been playing for hours. Every day. Arrrrrr.















Some of the things you'll do in Pirates! These screens are all from the SAME game.

Simple, addictive gameplay that makes this one of the most accessible games in years. Newbies, this one’s for you. Lovely, colourful graphics and joyful music that makes the Caribbean come alive. It’s so much fun, there ought to be a law.


Ship to ship combat. Sword fighting (non-insult, for Monkey Island faithfuls – this one’s the real thing). Town raids. Treasure Hunting. Ballroom Dancing. Clever trading. All these activities are introduced as deceptively simple mini-games that exist together in a delightfully charming package.


This is a game I can cheerfully recommend to any kind of gamer – casual or hardcore, soldier or strategist, embryo or fossil. You’ll all dig it. God promise.


Available for PC, and shortly for Xbox.



2 comments:

  1. Thats a nice game. The cut scenes could have ahd more variety. We could have been given more to manage! But still it is a very good game!

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  2. Avast! Ye! For a sea-faring scurvy-bearing, your play with words is as incisive as my cutlass' own! Getting back to reality, like you, I have been following this series since the first one came out and absolutely loved it. For an open-ended game, very few to come out nowadays, it still retains much of the realism that was packed in its predecessors. Love the game!

    Simply Super Scallywag!

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