User Reviews (11 - 21 of 56)

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Fun For All Ages

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: October 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is a great strategy/action game. It is fun for everyone from 8 to 80. Be a pirate, swash buckle, dance with the governor's daughter to get great items to help you plunder. Talk to the characters at the tavern for information and most importantly blow up ships and build your fleet!

Very addictive, consuming fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: February 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is truly a fun game. My husband and I have played for hours at a time. I've had no trouble with crashes, bugs, etc. Just lack of sleep! If you want a game for pure enjoyment, strategy, and adventure, this is definitely it!

Not just for kids!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Though it would be family friendly, I'm proof that it's highly addictive to adults too!
The different eras and levels of difficulty mean that the game can be played many times over. Various piratical activities offer the chance to use different skills - dancing needs some coordination, whereas for land battles you'll need to strategise.
It's great fun seeing your pirate become more and more famous and rise through the dastardly ranks as you defeat other notorious characters.
Highly recommended.

Okay, fun, but not a really great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 31
Date: April 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is kind of strange. Its essential activities can be summarized: capturing treasure, swordfighting, gaining quests, etc, but as a whole, there is no real plan, no overall strategy or mission. however, i keep playing it, which probably says more about me than the game.

Want to be a Pirate? This is the game for you.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pirates! is an adventurous game for an age range of about 8-??? You play a man that has lost his family and is looking for them while privateering for the Powers: England, France, Spain, or Dutch. You also can engage yourself with quests: searching for treasure, hunting down a certain ship, among other adventures. You can recruit a crew and divide the plunder when they get restless for their treasure after months at sea. While playing, you could romance the Govener's Daughter or fence with the enemy captain. Pirates! is a game that everyone will love and play for hours.

for kids and adults!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was pleasantly surprised to hear how much my husband liked this game. He knows a lot about boats and excitedly told me that they got all the boats right on the game. So not only does he have a great time playing it with the kids, but they also get to learn about the different ships, sizes, weapons that were used and more!

Ahoy Matey! Get ready for a fun game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is different each time you play it and it's fun. I have Pirate Hunter also which is similar but this game is easier to control than Pirate Hunter.

Very addictive!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is so fun to play! The only thing I didn't like about it was when I was forced to retire. The only real problem with it is like other reviewers have stated; you start to play it and before you know it half the day has passed and you tell yourself you are going to do just one more thing.. ahh! But if you want a game that's fun and has really good replay value this is it!

Swashbuckling fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As a diehard Civ fan, I picked up this game not sure what to expect--and was blown away. It is fun, addictive, and much more lighthearted than some of the Civ-class games. One of my favorite things about this game is the way it combines multiple activities within the gameplay: Sailing, dancing, sword fighting, treasure-hunting, and capturing cities all in one game! The graphics are cartoonish but quite pretty. Some of the details of the world (treasure locations, plot timing) vary from one playing of the game to the next, which improves replay value, as does the ability to focus on those parts of the game that you find most enjoyable. However, even with these benefits, I found the game much less fun after a few thorough playings, and now return to it only sporadically. The ability to adjust the difficulty level was also a nice feature, though I found myself wishing to adjust difficulty for the different activities separately--at higher levels, I found most of the game quite reasonable but the dancing very challenging. Overall, this is a very good game, though not, in my opinion, a great game on the order of Civilization IV. Pirates is a lot of fun, and I would definitely recommend it as a light adventure for anyone in a swashbuckling mood.

One of the best games I've played in a long time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've only had this game for two weeks and I was a little worried that some of the bad reviewers would be right and that the game would get boring. That didn't happen with me.

This game is a lot of fun and a bit addictive, in ways alot of other games are not.

The premise of the game is simple. You play as a young man who's family was ruined by a Spanish nobleman but you escape. You take to sea under either the British, French, Dutch or Spanish but quickly mutiny against your cruel Captain. At this point, the game is completely up to you.
Unlike many games, where there is a progression you must follow in order to move the game along, you are not bound to any storyline. You can accept a letter of marque from any or all of the powers in the Caribbean and wage war on their behalf; attacking the shipping, capturing ships, raiding cities or you can simply attack any ships that happen to be in your area

You can devote your time to reuniting your long-lost family and avenging those responsible. You can go after the other pirates and attempt to locate their lost treasure. You can explore for lost cities of the Incas and Aztecs.

you can do anything you like; stay loyal to one or more nations and target only their enemies or play the game of shifting alliances, serving one power and then another. Court the daughters of the governors, fight enemies, track down criminals, recruit men to serve on your ships, build up a fleet....anything you want to do, you can.

One of the most unique aspects of the game is the aging. I cannot think of any other game real-time or not that includes this. Basically, you will have between 20-30 years to do your best (or worst) and then age catches up to you. You're not long as quick with the sword as you were and soon you find yourself unable to take down the Captain of the Guards in the city or to best the Captain of an enemy vessel. You'll notice when this happens and you must just find yourself in prison if you're not careful. This of course is when you divide up the plunder for the last time and go into retirement. Here you will get to see how well you did and what becomes of you.

Another aspect is the wind. While some reviewers found this frustrating, I found it fun. Instead of just mindlessly attacking ships from any direction, you have to set yourself up to be upwind from your prey and sometimes, this isn't possible and you'll be forced to give up the chase. It may get annoying when you need to travel from west to east on the big map, say from the Gulf of Mexico to the Bahamas but that's life.

There are a few criticisms...

You possibly could go your whole game experience without ever engaging in combat with other ships. Only you can initiate combat, even if you are near enemy ships much more powerful than your own. You may get a cannonball from them on the big map which will do some minor damage but that's it. Maybe on the harder difficulties this isn't true, but it would have been nice if your enemies could engage you and force you to fight or run for your life.

When it comes time to divide the plunder (something you must do every now and then as your pirate crew will go restless), several months go by and then you can resume your adventure. However, you only have your flagship, even if you had several other ships when you went into port. Any supplies you had are also gone. This is somewhat annoying as you might capture a couple of good ships but you know you'll have to get rid of them at some point. It would have been nice if they had allowed you keep what you wanted.

Another is the lack of diversity in the characters and cutscenes. Every tavern looks the same except for the barmaiden. Ditto for the daughters though some are a bit more...well endowed than others. The governors are all the same for each power. And the fights are the same over and over...oh you may start on the forecastle at one time and the main deck on another but aside from that, there is no real difference.

Aside from that, the game isn't lacking much. There are so many aspects of the game to explore that you'll end up playing it several times. Ultimately, the goal of the game is to retire successfully; marry an attractive daughter, amass a fortune in gold and land, be famous for defeating the other pirates, etc.

So if you're looking for a fun game, one that allows you alot of freedom of movement and one that you'll play more than once, this is it.

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