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Horrible Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 20
Date: June 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Horrible game that doesn't really involve the player. Unless you are a fan of this classic series. A parent...or other must realize that it is a choose your own adventure...and sit by waiting for the results. It's one of those terrible PC games that gained popularity and has misrepresented its marketing towards the PSP.

At least it's only thirty bucks

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: February 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game based on all the good reviews it received, so after playing it I felt obliged to write one of my own, so other people like me don't make the same mistake.

The graphics and music are fine. Not mind blowing, but still respectable for a psp.

My serious problem with this game is how little there is of it. After about an hour or two to learn the ropes I quickly amped the game all the way up to its hardest level.

The ship to ship combat is remarkably shallow and easy. You basically sail in circles and shoot at the other ship. You give and take little enough damage that conventional sailing ship tactics really play no part, excepting that you want to try and broadside the other ship while keeping away from their sides.

The dueling mode is, if anything, even easier and an easy out to actually having to fight ship to ship battles. I fought around 30 duels, most of them on the hardest difficulty, and only lost twice. If you win the duel, you get their ship, period.

Treasure hunting mode is mind numbingly easy as well, look at the map, navigate there while retaining at least one digger. Once you understand what you're supposed to do, this is impossible to fail at.

The only mode even slightly engaging is the land combat, which is basically an extremely dumbed down version of Field Commander. The only reason it's more entertaining than the rest of the game is that you often face far greater numbers who have more firearms than yourself.

Overall, this game is a complete waste of money. I played for ten hours and felt I had done everything there was to do in the game. The fact that it seems promising when you first start playing doesn't take away from the disappointment that is soon to follow as you wonder to yourself, "Is this it?"

Boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: June 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Based on the good reviews here and elsewhere, I purchased this game and was excited to play it. Unfortunately, I do not see what others find so fun about it. I found it extremely slow-moving and repetitive. You sail, fight, trade, dance....over, and over, and over. Boring-boring-boring. There are side quests, but they just do not make up for the overall simplicity and dragginess of the game.

Okay for the PSP but not great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game looks fun but follow through is mediocre. I guess you can't expect computer strategy on a handheld. It will keep you attention for a while but the game gets a little monotonous after two hours of play. Nice try but no cigar.

Brief Fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is instantly addicting, but after staying up all night to play it, it gets pretty monotonous fast. Especially the dancing.

Not an excellence, but definitely a keeper

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Okay, lets me start with the things I hate in the game. I really hate the land searching (finding treasures, lost cities, relatives), kind of a weak excuse for a minigame. And the land battles system sucks, they tried to make a TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) mini game but it doesnt work. Sword fights are okay, but gets pretty boring unless you choose the toughest difficulty (Swashbuckler), which I do not recommend for your first game, takes alot of practice to master swordfighting. What I love about the game is that it actually have quest to complete following the storyline, but sometimes unrelevant. The game itself is pretty educational, lots of geographic detail and names of ships. Play it as many times as you want, its a sandbox, but you will eventually realise that you are playing a repetitive game. For a $30 value, it is definitely worth keeping.

I gave it a good 4 star on the fun scale, because it is a great deal of fun packed into the life of a pirate. But still, no game is perfect, at least for me.

addictive though somewhat repetitive.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Sid Meier's Pirates! is an open-ended, role playing, character adventure set in the late 17th century Caribbean that is essentially a collection of several different minigames.

As captain of your own ship with a personal agenda to recover and avenge your loved ones, you sail to various Caribbean ports or engage other vessels on the high seas. A variety of career paths are possible: Buy low and sell high as a reputable merchant, privateer for profit for a fledgling European empire, or become the scourge of the Caribbean who victimizes anyone who crosses your path.

Your adventures play out in a series of minigames: ship battles on the high seas, wooing the governor's daughter on the ball room, and crossing swords with a rival captain or suitor. The minigames are charming but fairly simple and easily mastered. As your adventure progresses, the mini-challenges do not become more complex; rather, your reflexes diminish as your character ages.

Despite the monotony that results from the minigames repetitivity, the rewarding storyline will coax you into capturing one more ship, sailing to one more port, or wooing one last lass in order to acquire another tidbit of information needed to avenge your family.

I've played the game a couple times (there is a learning curve on how to complete tasks efficiently, before your character's age becomes too much of an impediment), but have not yet achieved its ultimate goal of revenge. As such I cannot comment upon its ultimate payoff, but the game is entertaining enough overall that I am sure I will give it another go.

Not the game for me.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am pretty obsessive about game buying. Before I bought Pirates!, I read just about every review I could find, and everyone (generally) seemed to like it. I was surprised, however, when i took this game home and got bored with it pretty rapidly. But this is not a bad game. It is a slow game. There is a lot to do, but none of it was compelling enough for me to really want to do it. The virtual world is huge, you can do a ton of things, but the mini games and the game in general is not that interesting. Because you'll be doing the same task over and over again, it starts to lose its meaning. But i come from the generation whose games are very ADD. If you have a little bit of patience (which I don't), and a bit of imagination, then this game might be the game for you. However, it certainly wasn't the game for me.

Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Very fun game, the graphics are pretty good too, basically the same gameplay throughout the game, but still a great game.

Pirates! Live the Life

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you remember the original Pirates! from the 80's on computer this is the new an improved version with additional features. If you have seen the Pirates! Live the Life for the PC and wished you could take it portable then this is the answer. The big question I had before buying this is if it had all the same stuff as the PC version, I hate the watered down version of games they put out for some of the portables. The answer to that question is yes. The main differences I have seen between the PC and the PSP version are the updates to how the controls work (of course), the change to how the dancing more works (kind of more mindless react as the PSP tells you what to do, some of the graphics such as details on the ships have been scaled back, and treasure hunting has been changed. Overall extremely impressive to how close this is to the PC version.

For those of you who have never seen a Pirates game this games combines an entertaining collection of challenges that play against each other. You are working to find your family, get the highest military rank, get married, collect as much gold and treasure as possible, find lost cities, keep your crew happy, choose your friends and your enemies wisely, manage resources, keep from being stranded and the list goes on. This may all sound complicated but this game is well put together in that you can pay attention to as much or as little of this as you wish. The more you can balance the more successful you will be.

There is no sense in typing out a detailed review as they can be found on the web at places like IGN. The things that keep me coming back is to beat my overall rank, as you finish you career many of the factors listed above come together to give you a rank as to how successful of pirate you are. This is more fun when you can compare it against how others have done. I like that in this game you can play with many different strategies towards solving the goal of being successful giving the game more variety. In a way like the Sims this game has a fun aspect of trying a strategy and see what happens. As a warning at some times that game can get tedious such as sailing back from a far off place on the map.

The reason for the 4 and not the 5 is the action can get slow at some points in the game, after you learn how to manage all the factors listed about the can get somewhat repetitive, the load screens start wear on you with time. Overall a very solid, well done and entertaining game that is even more impressive because so much has been made portable.

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