Sid Meier's Pirates! Review

Sid Meier's Pirates! might slightly be dated at this point, but thanks to the new bundle of 2K games available on Steam, this game may just be making it on to you PC. In the game you will be taking on the role of captain of ship. Through the game you will be trying to find your long lost relatives who were captured by the EVIL Marquis. You will have the opportunity to hunt pirates, raze cities, defeat ships in naval battle, attack fellow captains with the point of your sword, as well as capture boats, pillage, and become the most notorious pirate.

The graphics hold up pretty well for being around 5 years old. The ability to customize your character is a norm now, and without it that hurts the game slightly. I do like the fact that as you buy items for your character, you're character will be seen wearing them during combat. The cut scenes are where you're going to see the most age. They aren't really all that crisp, and there are certain scripted sequences that you are going to see a hundred times over.

The music and sounds show that this game belongs as one of the best pirate games out there. That being said the quenticiential pirate song will get stuck in your head as you're going to hear it over and over again as you're sailing. I do find it odd that all the characters are speaking, what we call today, "Simsian".

The controls will have you utilizing the numpad as if it was going out of style. The more difficult the game the more you'll have to rely on the numpad to accomplish tasks. There is definitely a rock, paper, scissors mechanic with the swords fighting that will have you try to beat or negate an attack.

Overall this game is still one that I come back to because its that good. The exploration, when not on the boat, can be a bit frustrating, but thankfully that's not what you'll be spending the most time doing. The naval combat is where its at in this game. You'll be dodging enemy fire while unleashing round after round of cannonballs. You'll have to find a nice balance between the number of ships you possess, crew members, and food supplies. After a while on the seas you'll have to divide up the loot, this will cause you to go down to the boat that is your flag ship, and cut into what you had, but this will help keep the crew happy, wait too long and you'll have a mutiny. You'll also have the chance to collect specialists off of enemy boats to make your ship and crew stronger. When you decide to divide up the plunder you'll have the option to go up in difficulty, I have found that some actions that I took for granted become impossible when I up the difficulty, mainly the dancing with the Governor's daughter of whatever city you've docked in.

This might be an old game, but because its got some age to it that means you can put everything on its highest, and have one hell of an adventure. My one bit of advice, always be good to the barmaid, she'll help you a lot. This game gets an 8.9 out of 10.

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