Customer Reviews

Sid Meier's Pirates! (Live the Life)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

If you have played any of the previous Pirates! games of the past, you will immediately recognize this game. The gameplay is essentially the same, with some added extras. The ship to ship battles play just like it did 15 years ago - and this is mostly a good thing.


Pros:
- Excellent graphics. The water animation is great looking.
- Varied tasks such as attacking ships and towns, finding treasure, finding lost family, keep you very busy.
- Easy gameplay. You can get into the game fairly quickly.
- Different "missions" keep you wanting to play more and more and watch your character progress.

Cons:
- Repetetive gameplay and animations/cutscenes. Everything in the game becomes tiresome when you have seen the same thing 20 times. There are only a few animations for each task in the game. Every town looks exactly the same also. There is no variety in the taverns, except for the colour of the hair of the "woman" at the bar. When swordfighting, there are pretty much 3 backgrounds that they take place. It is way too scripted also.
- No way to speed up sailing against the wind. Out of all of the things to make more realistic, they should not have picked this one.
- Sneaking into town is extremely boring, time consuming, and unvaried. There are two speeds to this - slow and slower.
- Even if you sail under one nation's flag, you can still earn promotions from other countries. The difference between being a pirate and privateer is practically zero.
- Limited upgrades to ships. While the game boasts upward of 20 ships, you can only add about 7 upgrades (sails, armour, etc). Unique/special upgrades would have been a nice touch.

Overall, it's a fun game and will keep you busy for many, many hours. However, you will become bored with it's repetetion too quickly. There just isn't enough variety in the game. Sailing and attacking ships is the best part of the game, and after a while, you will cringe at having to go into town for the 1000000th time to talk to the governor / dance with the daughter / fix your ship / trade goods. It's EXACTLY the same in every town, and that is my biggest gripe.

Being a huge fan of the orginal Pirates and other Sid Meier games, I was very exited about the potential for this new version. However, in the end it did not live up to my expectations of a challeging strategy game. This game is too easy, repeditive and really made for young children, not the typical Sid Meier Civilization types. After playing for a few hours I asked "Is this all the game offers?"

Similiar to the old Pirates, you are the captain of a pirate ship in the Carribean. Most of the game revolves around sailing to different ports, atacking other ships, and dancing with the governors daughters.

Sailing around is exceedingly boring and time consuming. Since the wind almost always blows in the same direction, it literally takes you 30 minutes to sail from one side to the other. Trading in the ports is virtually worthless... everything is based on fixed prices... it is a minor minor part of the game... when you can get thousands of gold from attacking pirates... do you really care if you make 50 gold by trading goods? No!

Attacking other ships is repeditive and easy. It starts where you sail your boat after their boat and fire cannons at each other. 90% of the time, their boat heads directly at your boat and then you duel. It makes it rare that you have a long drawn out cannon match. I thought the sword duels would be fun, they aren't. Simply by constantly tapping the "jab" button you will win all the matches... No need to dodge, jump, etc... I have yet to lose in over 50 duels with this simple strategy... Also, it makes no sense when your boat with 40 sailors can easily take over an enemys with 200 or more all the time.

At the different ports... The governors daughter asks you to goto the dance... where you follow her dance moves around by pressing the keypad..... Then you do it over and over and over again.... It wasn't fun the first time... its less fun the 50th time.

If people are looking for a much more complete and exciting pirates strategy game, I recommend Port Royale 2.

I just lost two days on this game, I love it that much!

I was a big fan of Civilization III, so I was curious to see what Sid would come up with this time. He didn't disappoint.

You are a young lad and your family gets kidnapped by pirates, so you sign on with either a spanish, british, french or dutch crew --- and much like that Gilligan's Island song; the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. After being beaten and abused by a horrible captain, the crew mutinies and puts you in charge.

You sail into the caribbean looking for lost family, battle enemy ships and fortune (hidden pirate treasure).

You can flirt with the governor's daughters and woo them with jewels, but you have to learn how to dance properly first (I'm hopeless at that).

Sea battles are neat because you can either pummel your enemy with a barrage of cannon fire (with various types of cannon fodder from grape shot, to chain to cannon balls), and watch your enemy sink. Or you can sail close to the enemy ship, board it, and fight the captain of that ship, winning what's stored on the ship as a price if you defeat the captain. But be careful, get too old and your moves are slower and you could wind up defeated and in jail on a local island. However, if you have enough money, you can bribe a guard and escape. If you don't, after a period of time you can try to sneak out of town to escape.

That's just the elemental part of this game. You can go up against notorious pirates by chasing them down and defeating them -- usually with a great sum of gold stored on their ships as a reward.

You can buy helpful additions for your boat at various towns -- each town seems to have its own specialty in boat upgrades -- or visit the tavern and talk to the mysterious man in the back, who often has something to sell you.

Each time you defeat an enemy ship of whatever team you signed up with, you are awarded rank and often land parcels on that island. But you can also be awarded rank and parcels of land with other countries -- it's up to you and how you sail and conquer.

What's really amusing is that when you defeat a particularly fierce enemy and you sail away, you can hear your fellow pirates sing merrily an old pirate dirge.

Watch your crew though, if you don't divide up the amassed treasure in a timely manner, they'll mutiny. And every time you divide up the treasure, you get a paltry sum, and are left with one boat -- even if you managed to gather five or six in your conquests.

If you woo one governor's daughter enough times (by dancing and giving her gifts, rescuing her from pirates, etc...) you can marry.

I've just started playing the game, and that's what I've discovered so far ... I'm eager to get back to it, even now.

BUY THIS GAME! And then say goodbye to your loved ones for a couple of days while you become consumed by it.

Right, if you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean, you'll see a lot of familiar stuff here. If you liked the movie(and not just because Depp and Bloom were in it), then this will be a treasure you won't miss

STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP!!
The fighting, looting, dodging, and overall pirating gameplay has been programmed beautifully. The only flaw in the gameplay standpoint is that sailing against the wind(usually eastwards) is at a crawl. The types of upgrades and different ships allow some strategy involvement, but not enough to make your brain strain. Diplomacy is for suckers, you can basically piss off all four countries(there's the English, Spanish, Dutch, and French) and not get in too much trouble. It's when you pick on one country in particular(I sacked every Spanish Town I could find) that you get into trouble.

WEDDINGS? I LOVE WEDDINGS!!! DRINKS ALL AROUND!!
I felt that swooning governers daughters was fun. My only fault with it is that if news of your exploits travels so fast(instantly for the most part), why don't the ladies know that you've been trying to pass the moves on other women? If you get the girl good enough, you can marry her, but there is very little gameplay bonus for it, just the ability to say that you're married.

YOU LOOK SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR, HAVE I THREATENED YOU BEFORE?
one of the biggest flaws(pretty much the only flaw) is that the animations and the people around you look alike. The animations are the same, just with different sprites. all of the cities are identical and everything is color coded(french wear blue, dutch wear orange, english wear red, and the spanish wear yellow). The important people, like rival pirates and evil folk, are a different lot and each have distinct sprites, but still fall victim to identical animations. Another problem, is that you have absolutly no character or ship customization. I was kinda hopin to create a swash-bucklin, Jack Sparrow-Blackbeard hybrid, but instead I get this Calvin-Klien reject who doesn't seem to age much. Ships are almost as bad, you can fly 6 different flags(French, English, Dutch, Spanish, Jolly-Roger, Blank) and have a small variety of imprints for your sails.

YOU THINK THIS WISE BOY? CROSSING BLADES WITH A PIRATE?
fencing is fun, but unless your at the higher difficulties you'll find yourself in five second duels most of the time.

I'M IN THE MARKET, AS IT WERE.
the cool thing about Sid's Pirates is that almost everything is pillageable. Cities, ships, gold, rival pirates, annoying guards. If I had the reigns of designing this game, I would make it so you could pillage the indian villages and jesuit missions. Most of the stuff you swipe you can claim for your own(ships, cash, trinkets) or your country(cities).

FOR SUCH A NEGATIVE OUTLOOK ON PIRATES YOUR WELL ON YOUR WAY TO BECOMING ONE!
the best thing about this game is that it is addicting, even for the doubters, haters, and non-gamers. I've handed the controls over to some skeptical people and they fall in love in 5 minutes. This game has an awesome conversion rate. If you don't love this game playing it, then something's wrong.

Long story short, if you don't mind reptetive animations, you'll love this game. If animation variety is a top priority, you'll be hooked still, but sadly dissapointed. It's hard to not like this game, despite its few flaws. If you have the cash and the drive space, or know someone who has the game, you have to try it out.

Sid Meier's Pirates is a solid game that cannot be classified under an existing genre. At its heart is a series of minigames, all of which, while addictive and entertaining, soon become tedious and repetitive.

Graphically the game is excellent, with a palette of colourful visuals. The sails of your flagship glow and flutter in the breeze, and the light aquamarine water is very well rendered, with good but not exquisite detail. The characters speak in a form of Sim-like gibberish, which contrary to what one may expect does not detract from the game. The music is similarly excellent, with sweeping orchestral themes.

It is in the area of gameplay, however, that Pirates fails to engage. The game is constructed as a series of mini-games/quests, all of which begin as enthralling and suspenseful pursuits. In the space of twenty minutes, you can engage in several naval battles, all of which possess surprising tactical depth, dance with half a dozen governors' daughters, participate in duels, assault towns and sneak into cities. The minigames are very satisfying, and since the four main factions of the game (The English, French, Spanish and Dutch) are often at war with each other, the player can gain promotions from various governors. For example, sinking a few Spanish War Galleons may well see you promoted to an English Admiral or Captain. However, despite the range of mini-games on offer, the game fast becomes tedious and frustrating. By far the weakest area of the game are the treasure quests. Having attained a map of buried treasure, one must land and search for the aforementioned booty. Despite the map, treasures are incredibly difficult to find, and after an hour of trudging through bland landscapes, the fruitless search soon becomes an exercise in frustration. Moreover, the main quest (that of freeing your enslaved family from the clutches of the evil Baron Montalban) is itself irritating, as even after destroying the Baron several times, he is still respawned until the player discoveres his hideout. (Which, like treasure is incredibly difficult to find.) Finally, the ships sail far too slowly. On occasion I sailed for fifteen minutes across the Carribean at an incredibly sluggish pace. Given that the wind is uniformly westerly, it is very difficult to sail quickly in any direction apart from west.

In conclusion, though "Pirates" is flawed and at times downright annoying, it still manages to be a satisfying and enjoyable experience for the first few hours of gameplay.

This review is for the CD version of the game, not the DVD version.

Sid Meier's Pirates is a fantasic game. The non-linar storyline allows for you to create your own story.

But be warned there are a lot of bugs with this game as is. I would recommend waiting for Atari to release a patch update for this game before buying a copy since is almost impossible to get a refund on open software. It is true that lots of people myself included are having problems running this game (check the Atari support forums if you don't believe me). I finally got the game to run by manually going into the config file of the game and changing some things. I haven't had any problems yet.

The problems I've had:
1) The game running for 1-2 minutes then the game closing itself to the desktop.
2) I saw a comment about graphic probems in a previous review. It is right. If you don't have a video card with T&L some characters will look like a ghost. Myself included. It doesn't effect game play though.
3) Other problems include the game closing when trying to load a save state. This is very irritating as you can imagine.

All in all I would have to give this have a 4 star rating, because they shouldn't of released it with all these problems.

Bottom line up front: After 15 years, Pirates! is updated, and just about the only improvement is in the graphics. Just about everything is the same as the original - for better or for worse. It would be akin to Ford releasing the Mustang in 1964, keeping the same body style for a couple of more years, and not producing any Mustangs until 2005. Then, to top it off, Ford releases a Mustang in 2005 that has a 1964-era suspension, bias-ply whitewalls, and vinyl seats - but, it has some nice new colors! Would it still be fun to drive? Yes. But after all that time, wouldn't buyers expect more improvement? This buyer certainly would!

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a game that allows players to become a swashbuckling pirate in the mid- to late-seventeenth century Caribbean. This new version is an update to the original smash hit of about 15 years ago. You'd have thought that after 15 years they could have added a little more depth to the characters, but more on that later.

To summarize for those unfamiliar with the original, players control a pirate and they can sail around plundering ships and seizing the cargo and gold, or they can choose to try to make it big as a trader in goods such as luxury items, sugar, etc. In between all the sailing and looting or trading, the pirate can align himself with one of four colonial powers (France, Spain, England, Holland), woo the daughter of any of the several colonial governors, gain information from a barmaid, bartender, or mysterious stranger in a tavern, upgrade/repair his ship or fleet of ships at the shipmaster's or trade goods with a merchant.

Let me not parse my words: The real fun of this game is sailing, sea battles, and trying to find treasure, wanted criminals, or lost relatives. All the other activities like wooing the governor's daughter, sneaking into an unfriendly town, interacting with the townspeople, and fighting duels is repetitive and time consuming.

There are several levels (I think five, but I don't have my manual with me now) of difficulty from which to choose. So far, I've played only on the first two: apprentice and journeyman. It is pretty difficult to mess up on apprentice level - a player can completely ham and egg it in a battle and still manage to win. Slight errors in judgement, timing, and aim will penalize a player more in journeyman level, but not so much as to make it too much harder than apprentice. The increased difficulty has its rewards, though: players get to keep a higher share of the booty as the level of difficulty is increased!

The game's interface is very easy to learn - everything is done via the number pad on the keyboard. Players can also use the mouse to point and click their way around the Caribbean, but the number pad system is much faster and more accurate.

The player's pirate accumulates wealth, land (granted by colonial governors), special items (like balanced swords, dueling pistols, jewelry, etc.), finds lost relatives, captures criminals, defeats notorious pirates (like Cap'n Kidd), and finds buried treasure. The success of the pirate at these activities determines his rankings upon his retirement. He could end up as a governor, or a pick-pocket depending upon how successful he was during his career. Retirement?! Yep! You can't be a pirate forever. The pirate will actually age over time, and his reflexes and/or his charm will erode, which makes it harder to win duels, dance properly (when wooing the aforementioned governors' daughters), or put together a crew. Although I have never had a pirate long enough to see him age, I presume that I can retire him before he embarrasses himself - unlike some boxers that I can think of. Evander Holyfield, are you listening?

Things to like:
1. Simplified gameplay makes it as intuitive as the original.
2. Sailing around and plundering or trading.
3. Gaining rank, wealth and land.
4. Searching for lost relatives, criminals, or notorious pirates.
5. Did I mention sailing around and plundering or trading?

Things that are not up to snuff:
1. All the NPC-like characters (governors, barmaids, mysterious strangers, bartenders, motley crews) kind of look alike, depending on their nationality.
2. Not surprisingly, the governors' daughters all look alike, too. Some are "plain," "attractive," or "beautiful." Amazingly, the beautiful ones also show as much cleavage as a Victoria Secrets model.
3. No way to change how your pirate looks. It would be nice to be able to make the pirate shorter, taller, thinner, fatter, uglier, balding, etc. Heck, it would be nice to make the pirate a female.
4. On the easier levels, it is possible to get a promotion from a colonial governor even though your pirate might have just sunk three of his nation's ships. This may change at higher difficulty levels, but even at easier levels, this seems pretty weak.
5. Pirate character development is pretty weak to non-existent. No way to see how much a pirates' swordplay has been improved due to the fact that he has acquired the balanced swords special item. Players are unable to choose the clothing of the pirate, etc.
6. Scripted videos of vessel boarding, duelings, etc. are repetitive and mind-numbing after a while.

This is a very, very, fun, albeit shallow, game. It would have been nice if developers had updated the game so that players could customize their pirates a lot more - think about Sims in Sims 2, your golfer in Tiger Woods 2005, or characters from Diablo II. I mean, please try and take advantage of increased capabilites of the PC, people!!

NOTE: The Limited Edition DVD has some nice extras like different music clips, a wider variety of flags to fly on your vessel, an assortment of pictures to display on your ships' sails, a version of Pirates! Gold Edition, interviews, concepts of packaging art, and other pieces of art. Please note that the Pirates! Gold Edition will probably not work properly on today's blazing fast PCs. I installed it, and the ship battles flew by so quickly, that I couldn't even issue one order!

I'll state it right up front; Sid Meier is a game making genius. Civ II is perhaps the greatest game of all time. So what happened? Civ III was fatally flawed and now Pirates looks like a huge misfire. I love the whole pirate concept, I love sailing around the Caribbean and visiting cities like Nassau, San Juan and Havana. The problem is that the game seems pointless and repetitive. I danced with every Governors daughter, found all my family members, collected all unique items but so what?

So how is it repetitive? Regardless of the city they all look the same; Tavern, Shipbuilder, Market. Same same same. The fights are the same. The opposing captain may have a slightly different uniform, the swordfight might be on a different part of the ship but they're all essentially the same. It goes even beyond that. The villain who captures your family needs to be caught in order to extract information on each ones whereabouts. Except that when you catch him he only offers one small piece of information. So you capture him again and again and again.

The game sets you on apprentice level to start with and I quickly, VERY QUICKLY, managed to upgrade my ship to the limit, purchase every single unique item and kill eight of the nine top pirates. At that point money was completely useless. I had nothing to spend it on except the occasional diamond necklace or ruby ring. I suppose I could work for a large estate but it seemed like an awful small reward.

Some of the fights were an exercise in frustration. If the ship doesn't have the wind behind its sails it moves like a badly wounded hippo. If the opposing ship is positioned into the wind you may find yourself flailing about unable to move as the other ship pounds on you. The positioning of the ships seem to be set at random so it's not even like you can use this information to your advantage.

There are lots of things to do in the game but it's hard to figure out why I might want to do them. I can assault a city, I can lead a new governor to a city, I can urge pirates to attack a city, I just can't figure out WHY I want to do these things. Even simulators like SIM City have a point. Build a cool city. In Pirates you can build up a fleet, collect a treasure pile and gather a pirate gang but before you know it you have to divide the loot and you lose everything you've collected except for a tiny percentage of the loot.

I think the fatal flaw in this game is when you ask yourself `Why am I still playing this'. I know that a game isn't working when I keep wondering when it's going to get better. Sid Meier will always be a legend in my book but a game really should have a desirable goal.

I just bought this game and already am addicted. I do agree with some of the other people's gripes about the repetitive nature of the game - there are several places where the animation and sequence of character interaction is identical and could be mixed up a bit. The graphics are awesome and the views when sailing the seas is great - the colors and the overall flavor of the Carribean is well represented. The game is almost too easy when playing in the lowest 2 levels. I found it very hard to beat named Pirates in the 3rd level, however, so I'm sticking with Journeyman level for awhile until I get more practice with the sword fighting.

As a woman, I have the usual complaint I have with most RPGs which is lack of female characters - in this game, you don't have the option of playing a female pirate. I would like to see an expansion pack with a female lead character. The romance storyline would have to be altered for that character, but the female character could have a relationship with another pirate. Speaking of the romance storyline, I found it extremely difficult to get the steps correct when dancing with the governor's daughter until I found an online game guide that gave the sequence of steps which follow a set pattern of 4. This made it easy to learn and without that guide, I doubt I would have ever mastered that aspect of the game. I also wish that the personal status screen would keep track of all the romances your character has - not just the one with the highest rating. The character should be able to have several different romances simultaneously, but the status page only keeps track of one. I also wish the pirate did not age so quickly - my first character was too old to fight well at 35, so on my next character, I found that not dividing the plunder was the best way to keep him from aging rapidly, thus allowing me to get further with the character. The drawback to this is carrying around too much gold that you risk losing to another pirate in battles at sea. I wish there were an option of burying your treasure - as far as I know, this isn't possible. Since you can find hidden treasures that other pirates have buried, you should have the option of burying your own treasure.

I hope they make some improvements and put out a new version - with female characters as well as some of the other enhancements that it needs. Still, this is a very fun game.

Sid Meier is a genius. Whenever you see his name on the front of a computer game box, you know the game is going to keep one philosophy in mind: Fun first. It's a GAME.

Happily, that philosophy is in full effect for Sid Meier's Pirates!. A Pirate-simulation game that oozes fun, cheesy stereotypes, and Yo!Ho!Ho! all over it, that I would not have been surprised if Johnny Depp appeared somewhere in the game. In multiple interviews, Sid Meier has repeatedly stated that during the design of a game, whenever realism of a setting and fun gameplay conflict in a gaming decision, fun always is selected. Good for him. Leave the reality to whatever edition of Flight Simulator is out this week.

The game uses a story of the wrongful imprisonment of your family to seek vengeance for the injustices imposed on them and you. As fate would have it (and as it is explained in the opening cut scenes of the game), your mission of vengance leads you to the command of your own vessel in the caribbean. But who cares? It's pirate time! And what a great time it is.

The gameplay is similar to the real-time simulated worlds observed in Grand Theft Auto, where life goes on whether you participate or not. You can go anywhere. Trade with anyone. Attack any ship. Plunder the caribbean. Charm the hearts of several governor's daughters. Seek buried treasure. Become the most feared pirate in the seven seas. A respected trader. A hero in one country, an outlaw in another. All at the same time. There's swashbucklling swordfights! Ship to ship battles! Become an admiral, a nobleman, perhaps governor of your own town. If not, that town can be attacked and plundered by your crew anyway. There was something else...oh yes, revenge for your family. Well, you can get to that eventually. Or not, it's your choice. Right now, the beautiful governor's daughter in Santiago needs wooing at the next ball, right after you use that map you bought in VeraCruz to dig up blackbeard's hidden treasure.

As you can tell, I love this game. It comes from a simpler time, where games were made simply for the buyer to enjoy, not suffer through. The graphics are beautiful, the art design captures the romanticized version of pirate life perfectly, the sounds and music are not just perfect, they are appropriately timed.

The only con I have for this game is the lack of a tutorial. However, the game is so easy to learn and play, it is quite forgivable. The other problem is the occasional crash to desktop. It's not too big a deal thoug, because the auto-save feature and the ability to quick-save anywhere when sailing minimizes this flaw.

One "flaw" that many reviewers seem to point out is the repetitiveness of the gameplay. I'm sorry, but I don't see that as a flaw. Do you repeat several actions? Sure do. Are certain cut scenes replayed over and over again? Of course! But I don't find the overall gameplay repetitive, because MOST games have repetitive gameplay. Think about it: How many games of Madden football look and play exactly alike? All those fighting games break down to the same few moves for each character. And every shooter out there has one core repetitive feature: point gun, shoot. Sid Meier's Pirates! also has repetitive actions, but includes a dynamic caribbean setting that changes based on the way you play. You may perform the same actions in a swordfight or dance, but I guarantee no 2 games will play out the same. You can start your career sailing under the flag of one of several nationalities, you can change the beginning skill of your hero, there are several time settings used for the caribbean that change the overall starting point for each nation, and the end result of the gameplay is up to you. There is no set goal. You can save your family or not. Retire as a swashbuckler or the hero of a nation. Doesn't sound repetitive to me. The only game that comes close to this is another pirate game, Port Royale 2. Although Port Royale 2 has even more options available, the complexity of the gameplay minimizes the sheer fun available. If you want a complex 17th century caribbean merchant/pirate simulator, try out Port Royale 2. If you are in the minority of gameplayers that can handle it, congratulations. If you are like most of us, and want a pirate game that allows you to enjoy the setting, is simple to learn and play, adds plenty of depth and variety to enrich the experience but never sinks you in details, then Pirates! is for you. Generally, if you are tired of the same old shooters, too full of themselves RPGs, strategy games that require a PhD to understand how to play, this game is right up your alley. Easy to learn, nothing to master, just plenty to enjoy.