Classics: Sid Meier's Pirates!

Game review here!

A classic game, remade in 2004 (or somewhere around that time) for PC and Xbox, Sid Meier's Pirates is... well, heck, I don't even know what genre you'd call it. Adventure, I guess.

You play as a young man, named whatever the heck you want, who is separated from his family by some evil count guy. Years later, he signs on with a ship. You get to choose, English, Dutch, Spanish, or French. As soon as you choose what crew you sign on with, you get a nice cinematic where you lead a mutiny because the captain is a total dick.

Nice! Go from swabbie to Captain before the game even starts!

So basically, the only thing that's really influenced by the captain you choose to sign on with is what port you start at. You can change your alliances in game easily just by deciding who to shoot at and who not to shoot at. If you're me, you'll have a tendency to shoot at the Spanish, because everybody knows that the Spanish were dicks back in that day. They might be dicks now, I don't know, I've never been to Spain. If you're my roommate Chris, you'll have a tendency to shoot at the French, because he just plain doesn't like France.

The game is essentially a sandbox, except that its filled with water and looks like the Caribbean. You can capture other boats, and create a fleet of up to ten ships, provided you have sufficient crew to man all those ships. Different ships have different stats, as well. The smallest ship, the Indian War Canoe, carries 50 men (75 with upgrades), something like 8 cannons, 20 or so tons of goods, and is the fastest, most maneuverable ship in the game. The largest ship, by contrast, carries hundreds of crew, 50 cannons, and hundreds of tons of cargo. However, it is clumsy to maneuver, and sometimes goes backwards if the wind isn't blowing just right.

You also have to deal with food. The more crew you have, the faster food will be consumed, and if you don't have enough crew, some food will go to waste. One upgrade can help with this. If you buy barrels, food lasts longer. Presumably without barrels, you just kinda tossed the foodstuffs on the floor of the hold, and it probably got stepped on every time someone had to get some rope or whatever.

The story, should you choose to actually pursue it, involves beating up the same bad guy over and over to get clues about the location of your missing family members. Once you have sufficient information, you can go to that location and dramatically kick down the door, at which point your relatives, who have not seen you since you were a little kid, will instantly recognize the angry pirate you and run up to hug you. Then you never see them for the rest of the game. Weird.

You also have to occasionally divide up the plunder, which basically resets your possessions and gives you the option of raising the difficulty one notch. If you do not divide the plunder, your crew will start to get irritated and leave. Before you divide the plunder, it is best to sell all your goods and every ship except your best one. Note that you do not lose any story progress or maps by dividing the plunder.

Getting on the good side of factions can get you promoted, which grants you bonuses, such as goods being cheaper, ship repairs being cheaper, and crew being easier to recruit, but to get on the good side of one faction, you have to get on the bad side of whoever they are at war with.

Replay value is practically infinite, as many events in the game are random, so it is never quite the same twice. You can also choose from several different time periods, which pretty much just changes the distribution of ports and cities.

The Bottom Line: excellent game. Highly recommended. Besides, it has Pirates in it. And you are one. Why are you not already playing this game?