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Fun & addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game. It's pretty simple as games go, but it's still lots of fun & very addictive. It's hard to quit because there's always one more thing left to do.

good time killer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you are looking to kill 3 hours during the day it is very easy to get wrapped up in plundering the seas. Not overly difficult, but fun.

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm told this is a great update of an old Sid Meier's Classic. It's apparently gotten a lot easier in the new edition (as video games tend to do), but there's plenty of challenge if you play in Swashbuckler mode.

Good game with above-average (think B to B+) replay value.

Awesome!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game. The graphics are good and it shows all the aspects of the life from a pirates eyes.

Outstanding game play!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Sid Meirs is genius. This game will give you many hours of intense game play. I wish there were more games of this quality to enjoy, instead of the mindless shoot-em-up stuff that makes up 90% of the games sold. I love the open endness of the game which allows the player to enter the game as not only a pirate but a trader or Spanish raider. It's also educational for younger players; teaching them the geography of the tropics and the location of many current cities. Highly recommended!

Great game with hours of entertainment.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The new installment of the old classic (I remember playing Pirates Gold on the Sega Genesis) is a great update. The different difficult levels force players to hone their pirating skills on land, sea, and with the ladies.

The tactical battle setup is a vast improvement. Crushing the enemy, drawing them into an ambush, or sneaking troops by to storm the city all come with their own risks and rewards. The only drawback is the inability to choose the type of troop you will have (i.e. pirates, officers, or buccaneers). Additionally, it would be nice to have comparable troops to those of the enemy (mounted units perhaps?)

The sea battles are great. New ship types, difficult winds, and great graphics combine to make the battles both engaging and entertaining. Again, customization of the ships in your fleet could be more in-depth. You have the ability to change the type of cannons, the sails, and add extra troops, but actual full customization might be enjoyable.

Finally, capturing the booty and the booty make for extra entertainment, as you attempt to not only conquer the New World, but also the heart of a beautiful governor's daughter. Including side quests and the dancing portion are great improvements over the original, and bring finding a wife into a brighter spotlight.

Overall, Sid Meier has done it again. Another great game for sim/strategy enthusiasts. The graphics, sounds, and game play are all top-notch. The only room for improvement would be through customization through means other than mods.

Popular Gift in My Family

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played this game myself suprisingly, but a few of my family members have now all requested it and love playing it. They've ben playing it for quite some time and are still just as into it as day one.

Great Game, But Comes With Minor Kinks

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

[...]

I had already purchased some pirate-themed video games over the past couple of years and became glad that I threw my hat into that genre. Apparently this genre is unique in that it involves elements of both role-playing games and action adventures. The other pirate games I have played focus on the main theme of trade, which is fun from the business and economy sense. (Buy low and sell high; the more money you make, the more expensive features become available.)

Sid Meier's Pirates! deviates from those games, though. (Actually, this game concept came out in 1987, so perhaps the other games deviated from this one.) Pirates! is based on an objective-clearing system (the more objectives cleared - and there are many - the higher your ranking), though it is open-ended to the point that fulfill those ones you want to and with what priority.

Some of these objectives include:

* Rescuing family members - gather maps and learn secrets to their whereabouts

* Finding buried treasure - you actually disembark from your ship, walk on land with a small band of mates, and compare your location to the map markers

* Courting Governors' daughters - this involves the eight directions of movement that must be done in sync with your female counterpart

* Sea battles - this is how you make your money, pick up some loot, and make your fellow sailors happy

* Attacking towns - if you tick off one of the four nations (Spain, France, England, Holland) too much, you will have difficulty entering their ports. What finer excuse to engage in an in-game strategy interface and try to take the town by positioning range and melee units on a board map?

There are other objectives in this game, as well, which bring out the great strategic and action value of this game. Thus, the true genius of Pirates! is the amalgamation of action, adventure, strategy, and role-playing games all into one title. I have not seen this level of diversity in a video game before, and I must say that this was perhaps the best $[...] I ever spent on entertainment!

The music and the graphics of Pirates! are somewhat sub-par for what we are used to nowadays, I must admit. However, the game concepts are so simple, yet so diverse, that you won't totally be bothered by the sound or visuals. Actually, the graphics of the ocean and land while you are at sea are pretty fantastic, though you will notice that some things just don't add up when you consider real-time events.

On that topic (real time events), I think that is the greatest weakness of Pirates! But again, the diversity of the game somehow makes up for that. What I mean by weakness in real time events are these:

A) You have the ability to sneak into enemy towns. This is a great concept, but everything is done in super slow motion - even when you are running: your character slowly lifts his legs as he spacewalks through the beautiful Caribbean town, yet he is still able to turn on a dime.

B) Sea battles appear slow-moving, but the awkwardness comes when trying to orient yourself with your surroundings: the water does not move according to the wind, so you cannot gage your movements, speed, or acceleration except by noticing the numbers changing on the screen. Thus, you are really just moving in relation to your opponent, which is somewhat daft. And finally,

(C) Moving around on land does not show on your maps. Also, you cannot cross one side of an island to the other and find a town waiting for you, as on the regular map. I'm not sure what the limitations were to the programming here, but you will find some hold-backs that are hard to fathom in a truly "open ended game." I guess everything can't be perfect.

To close, I highly recommend this game, Sid Meier's Pirates! for everyone who prefers video games as opposed to going out to crowded movie theaters (where people whisper, cell phones distract you, and atypical behavior is bound to happen). I offer this comparison because Pirates! feels like a movie that I am scripting as I play it. With the action sequences that I engage in, it makes movies somewhat worthless - I'd rather interact in my own pirate film than just sitting there watching it! Swordplay is something I can't come by in my everyday life, for example, so watching someone else do it is cool. But if I make the determination to swing low while my opponent goes high, and thus stabbing him over the side of the boat, I would say that that beats watching others on a movie screen any day.

Given cost, excitement and interaction levels, and convenience, Pirates! at $10 is one "movie ticket" that can be replayed over and over again and will save you the hassle of inconsiderate, snot-nosed patrons all around you - this will be your new "movie channel" for a while. Also, the replay value for Pirates! is very high - try coming back to this game after putting it down for a couple months. It's like brand new. Lastly, I'd say that this game still stands above the other pirate-themed video games that I have played; and this genre has turned out to be one of my favorites. I think Sid Meier's Pirates! is probably king of the pirates video game genre. Also, the ease of simply picking up this game and playing it says a lot: challenging, yet fun and easy to learn. Gotta love that.

So buy Sid Meier's Pirates for $[...]. It'll be one of the better investments in entertainment in your life.

very fast game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

great game.graphics,interplay is great.we have the Primus strategy guide which has helped a lot.the only drawback we saw is you can't adjust the speed.it plays fast.so save at least a couple of times thru the game in case you want to go back and try a different strategy,use this especially in the higher difficulty levels.

Yo ho ho and a bundle of joy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: June 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutely charming. Simple to get into, great graphics, bug-free play -- colorful, funny, at times touching. Obviously, I love it, and if you're a fan of, say, The Count of Monte Cristo, I think you will too. Easy for kids but you can ratchet up the difficulty if you like -- I don't. So far. A++++++++++++++++

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