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Excellent game, if you get to play it!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was so excited to receive my Pirates!. I installed in my machine and started to play with it, and surprise! The program had to close because it found a problem. I went to the Atari online support, did everything, practically investing $200.00 in updates for my computer, and run the program again and...the same thing! Did everything and as soon I start to sail, the program close. The worst thing is that Atari do not answer any of the technical problems and is not offering any support, so you are on your own! The game is so bugged, that only an experts in computer can play it. I recommend not to buy it until Atari figure it out how to solve this problem, is they do, so far they keep ignoring all consumers! Check Atari community forum and you'll see the pain!
There are a lot of excellent games in Amazon to choose from if you want to play something this Christmas, but Pirates!, if a good option, only if you like to play with the box!!!!

Proof Positive You Can Never Go Back Again - Sid Why Do You Mock Us!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Clearly the greatest game of all time considering the generation it was released in. I actually bought the original game BEFORE I bought the Commodore 128. How many games can you say that about? I have never been able to capture the feeling I got from Pirates!, with any other game. The violence, the debauchery, the conquest; this game had it all. November 16th cannot come fast enough. Of all the games Sid Meier ever made, Pirates! was his crown jewel. Taking into consideration the graphics of Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates! should be stunning. Without a doubt this game has the potential to ruin a lot of marriages and fail out a lot of students. It could even topple the original Pirates! as the greatest game ever.

UPDATE:

I originally wrote a review on a game I did not play because I had faith in Sid Meier. I have played most of his games (including the original Pirates and Pirates Gold). I can only say that this game is a disappointment. Although sea battles are good they are a far cry from Pirates of the Caribbean or even Bethesda's High Seas. The "special crew members" you pick up are virtually worthless. You only have to hijack one of them and they are with you for life - they have no individual stats so they are all the same. Pirates of the Caribbean gave each guy individual stats and you paid for their improved performance, it made sense. You should be able to hire these guys at taverns or go on missions to find them; they are and should be pretty important to any successful ship captain.

The game play is repetitive (so was the original but it was 17 years ago!) He used the same descriptions in his instruction manual that he used 17 years ago Sid didn't even have the decency to change the verbage in the manual! I know I still have it along with the orignal game and the save disk I made for it. He also got rid of the 1560's era, a very challenging one I might add.

Dancing is a joke! I can do it, it is not a problem but you have to dance with your wife to get any information out of her. This is not the 1990's it is the 1690's. Women did what they were told! What a sell out!

Lets call this game what it is, a politically correct Pirates, you can't even buy tobacco! Are you nuts! Tobacco was a major new world export, I can understand cutting out slavery but tobacco. Why don't you just get rid of sugar and say we export Splendor or NutraSweet because sugar is bad for you! Just awful.

Needless to say I am profoundly disappointed with this game, I expected so much more. I have a high-end system so I have no problems with game play. Believe me after one battle you have seen it all. Very sad.

By the way. I was a big wit and charm guy in the original Pirates. I liked getting large happy crews of men to sack every place I could. What the hell does wit and charm do now? I still have to dance (even with my wife), I still have angry crewmembers. Shouldn't wit and charm make dancing easier or cut it out all together - now there is an advantage.

This is just a very poorly made game, they tried to take the original and beef it up with graphics. This didn't work for Star Wars and it doesn't work for Pirates! The title should have been Pirates?

Worth a chance, but not great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The name Sid Meier made me buy "Pirates" as soon as I could. I figured it would be a nautical copy of CIV III or something close. It's not.

On the plus side are the graphics. There are all sorts of fairly impressive little details that give the game depth. For instance, if you are attacking a ship at night and end up in swordplay, you see the stars in the background while you fight.

Unfortunately, the gameplay itself leaves much to be desired. As other reviewers have mentioned, the game gets very repetitive very soon. There are only a few variations in each scene (such as naval battles or meeting the governor, etc.) and these quickly become annoying. After a little while of playing, I tried to click through these encounters a fast as I could. I also found the difficulty levels to be too distinct. The second to hardest level was laughably easy while in the most difficult level, swordfights were so fast as to be almost impossible. Overall, I would skip buying this one, or wait until its on sale.

Compare Pirates! vs. Port Royale II

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: January 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I played Port Royale II for a couple weeks before losing the CD to a pile of Christmas wrap in the trash (probably). So when my wife wanted Pirates! instead, I went for it. (Besides, she let me buy a couple Fraggle Rock DVDs at the same time.) Now we have to take turns at the one computer powerful enough to play the game.

Sailing around is quicker and more interesting in Pirates! The land has interesting little landmarks, and you can choose to go ashore if you want. There's weather clouds that affect speed and running into reefs can hurt ships (unless at easiest difficulty).

Fighting naval battles is faster and much easier in Pirates! Port Royale II had a much harder battle because you could be up against several ships at a time versus your fleet (you sail one ship at a time at the enemy and switch to the next in your fleet when that one gets too hurt). With Pirates, you always use one ship against one or two enemies. The enemies are usually one small armed escort ship and one poorly armed cargo vessel. If somehow you loose, you have to re-engage the battle with another ship if you want to continue fighting.

Sword fighting is pretty easy to master in Pirates! (I have never ever lost a swordfight, and I am #3 most notorious pirate in the world.) I have only played the two easiest difficulty levels, so maybe this will get harder. I almost always sail one of the smaller, faster ships, get in to boarding range, and swordfight to a victory (even with 40 of my crew to their 150 crew). The animation during sword fighting isn't bad, but pretty repetitive, as there's only about 6 different scenes. Big ships, Little ships, Bars, Garden (for the honor of the governor's daughter), Fortress, etc.

Trading is much better in Port Royale II. I could spend all my time trading and amassing a fortune without a fight. You could even buy property and build plantations or factories in different towns, set up automatic trade routes using hired captains, and even strongly affect the local economy by what you did or didn't supply the town with. Pirates! doesn't allow enough cargo capacity, variety of goods, towns with money, or reason behind local prices to make trading very interesting.

Reputations with different countries make much more sense in Port Royale II, where people hold more of a grudge for acts of piracy. In Pirates!, I was able to capture a dozen Spanish ships before their towns would stop letting me sail into port and earning promotions based on sinking the odd pirate ship, then I quickly marched into 2 or 3 of their towns and replaced the governors with Dutch, and earned a not quite whopping 1100 bounty on my head. I made much more than that from just sacking those towns. I cleared my entire reputation by sailing the brother of a Jesuit priest from one town to the neighbor (about a 30 second run), and was instantly awarded with a Spanish promotion to Admiral (for all my good deeds sinking pirate ships presumably).

Doing missions was better in Port Royale II. There you would get an assignment to sack a town, gather a quantity of goods, or follow a trail of a pirate, etc. Usually it involved going quite a distance under a time constraint. In Pirates, you always just escort a ship from one town to the neighbor. You almost always have to defeat exactly one pirate along the way. I had one mission that I was to deliver a special crop to Marcaibo. Along the way, I stopped by a settlement and was asked to escort a governor to Marcaibo. Next door was a Jesuit mission, where I was asked to escort some settlers there also. I fought the three pirates (one chasing each of my escortees), and was rewarded with a promotion and land (what's that for?) when I got into town. Other missions are to find pirates (they're everywhere, but the named ones can be hard to track down), or dig up burried treasure (buy cheap map pieces and then walk your crew around land following landmarks to the oh-so-obvious piles of treasure). In Port Royale II, pirate treasure floats in the ocean.

Land battles for capturing cities only exist in Pirates! and are fairly easy and turn-based. If your crew outnumbers the soldiers in town, as long as you fire at them from the cover of trees, you will win pretty easily. In fact, if your crew gets unhappy (rare if you fight ships as often as I do), then go fight a town and do so poorly that your crew is reduced. The crew will be happy because there is now more gold per person, never mind that half just died senselessly due to poor commanding. In Port Royale II, taking a town consists of firing on batteries out in the water, using hundreds of tedious passes of your ship, firing once on each pass to avoid being hit by the battery.

Romance is a nice addition in Pirates! You have to earn a rank before getting to dance with the Governor's daughter. The prettier ones are better dancers. To dance, you have to follow her hand signals as to the next step (one of 6 directions). It takes a little to get used to, but failure doesn't cost anything so there's plenty of chance to practice until you get it right (or buy the dancing shoes which will override most of your bad moves with the right ones). Give the lady a good dance and she gives you gifts or information leading to pirates. Make her happy a few times and she will want to marry you.

Sneaking into towns in Pirates! isn't something I've tried yet. It looks pretty tedious, and I can sack the town faster than that if I really want to get into an unfriendly place. My wife isn't as bloodthirsty as I am (I sail on Captain Feathersword's Friendly Pirate Ship), so she has done this several times, and ended up in jail almost half of those attempts.

Port Royale II has a better variety of ships, or at least they matter more. In Pirates!, I always sail small fast ships and defeat even the biggest by outmanoevering them. In Port Royale II, you had better have a comparable sized ship or you were outmanned and outgunned.

Both games seem to be pretty stable, assuming you have the graphics power to run them. I did find that about 20% of the time that Pirates! is launched, it would run very slowly. Rebooting would solve the problem. The first time I ran it I didn't know that wasn't normal and spent the first night playing battles in slow motion and complaining that it takes forever to get anywhere. At normal speed, it is much more fun.

MY RECOMMENDATION:
If you like a trading game, get Port Royale II.

If you like being a bloodthirsty pirate who always wins, get Pirates! (and stay on the easier levels).

If you love pirate games, get both and have fun with a broader spectrum of activites.

Pirate ?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: June 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off, my review is based on:
1) I'm physically disabled = so I could only play through "adventurer" difficulty
2) I used the onscreen numpad = I believe those who use the keyboard will have better results

Gameplay: 5 difficulty settings ... apprentice is basically your tutorial ... each dificulty settings has a noticeable affect ... some have said the game is too easy = you can not upgrade your ship/character if you choose not to, plus with all the ships to choose from, you can always use weaker ships ... many choices on how to play ... the onscreen numpad + mouse was the only way I could play the game due to my lack of manual dexterity = wish more game gave the user both options: keyboard and/or mouse ... you can close the onscreen keyboard if you don't need it

Ship Battles: fight it out or ram'em ... wind changes ... multiple ship options ... all affect one's tactics ... as the difficulty increases, the enemy becomes much smarter

Sword fighting: more fun here ... you pick 1 of 3 sword options ... again, as the difficulty increases, you must counter more + aging has a "noticeable" affect on your characters performance

Land Battles: not used to "square movement" ... I prefer fluid gameplay + the ability to use tactics such as ambushes and choke points ... here, both sides can see where each other is from ther very start ... I only did 1 land battle per game because it is neccesary to complete a quest ... I basically just made sure I had equal or greater numbers

Dancing: ahhh, the toughest part ? ... you would think this nice diversion would be a rest from combat ... difficulty increases per attractivenes of daughter ... plus, if you're really nailing a dance with fourishes, the characters get bigger and obscure the daughters hand motions ... since she is a vital source of info, you must dance ?

Upgrades: I believe you have 8 for your ship ... 8 specialists for ship as well ... 4 for swordfighting ... 2 for dancing (... not including your initial skill pick) ... again, if you find it too easy, just don't upgrade

Quests: you have 9 pirates to fight ... 9 pirate treasures to find ... 4 relatives to rescue ... 4 lost cities to find ... guess you could say 4 nations to impress ... all add points to your characters score ... as does gold total + acres given out by each nation for "your help"

Manual: thought I'd give it it's own section = very informative with historical content ... nicely done

My one complaint: you're never really a Pirate ! ... 1) you can't start as one(.. you pick from 4 nations) ... 2) you never look like one = picture the 9 you fight and those on the Piarte ships = do we ever resemble any; no ... 3) can we romance/wed barmaids; no ... 4) we don't even have a Pirate Haven from which to operate from
I would have like to: be a Pirate; attack all nations; romance/wed barmaids etc...
They could have added this feature ?
Maybe in Pirates! 2.
Would have been nice if every Pirate you defeated basically worked for you = each Pirate Haven would sell a upgrade( 9 havens / 8 upgrades = doable)... have enough gold for your goods/ships(...each pirate you defeat adds to that havens total)... they would act just like nations ports = mysterious stranger would sell the items you need + offer info ... barmaids/bartender have the info you need ... wed a barmaid and achieve the same affect as that of a governors daughter
Basically, just turn the game into 2 games.
Sure the point totals/categories would be different, but the extra gold + ship destroyed totals could reflect the difference ?

With the quests/aging/sailing, I found it difficult to achieve a high rating without being "in poor or failing" health :-)
Seemed the best I could do was retire at 48yrs old ... even played into my 60's, but swordfighting was rough as your character really slows down.
I like to hit every port/settlement + romance as many daughters as jewerly permits. It was the norm to have 5+ Mendoza's on the screen at the same time. Factor in chasing Baron Raymondo for map sections and you see how difficult it is to finish at an early age.
Plus, as the difficulty increases, your crew gets unhappy quicker.

Pirates! is the best pirate game I've played.
Maybe the next one will let us actually play a Pirate :-)

* not one single crash ... using XP/SP2
* did notice ....> if you constantly cut short/skip the cutscenes, the sword fighting screens will load slower(...luckily, you get 3 sword exchanges before you input a move) ... saw no difference in seas battles

Good, but flawed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a veteran of the original Pirates! Commodore 64 game, I was eagerly anticipating the new version. I still consider Pirates! to be one of the top 10 games of all time (right next to Wasteland).

Frankly, this game is too easy. It is MUCH easier than the original. It is also much more tedious. Dancing with the governor's daughter for the 100th time gets a little lame. Plus, what is the point of getting married? My "wife" is worthless and I can still hit on other chics...

Also, at the age of 29, I am already an English Duke, French Duke, Dutch Duke, and Spanish Captain. This is my first game and it is beginning to rival my greatest games on the old version (and I actually crashed the old version by plundering too much gold once). I just conquered Panama and made it an English city... this was a very difficult task in the old version. Did it on my first try this time.

Given that this game is pretty much exactly the same as the original, I can't understand how it can be so much easier. The ship battles are easier, conquering towns is easier, sword fighting is easier, etc. It doesn't make sense unless there was a conscious effort to make it easier - which I don't understand because the original, while not overly difficult, was well-balanced and very entertaining.

Just like on my old C64... but better!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: February 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I should probably preface this by saying that I played the original C64 version of this game a LOT. This takes a lot of the same aspects of the original and improves on them while adding a lot of new things to the game. It is INCREDIBLY addictive (if that's a good thing) and the time just disappears while you're playing (that might not be such a good thing either ;) The graphics look great and the gameplay is simple and intuitive (you pretty much control everything using just a mouse and your number pad). The gameplay is pretty open-ended and you usually have a lot of things going on at the same time so it keeps you really busy. It has 5 difficulty levels so it can continue to be a challenge no matter how good you get. There are so many different options to choose from when you start a career (choosing between the 4 countries, your skill, your time period, etc) and there are so many different things for you to do within the game that you'll never have the same experience twice.

Addressing some other reviewers' complaints:
Some have complained about the gibberish language "Firaxish" being annoying. It's very similar to the language spoken by the Sims and I find it to be a unique and interesting aspect of the game. Some also complain about repetitiveness. Well, the game is technically comprised of a lot of mini-games so I guess you could say that's repetitive, but then again, every battle is unique. People complain about the dancing mini-game, but it comes with practice and learning the dance steps (as it would in real life). There are also items that you can acquire that help you be more successful. Some complain about sailing into the wind being slow, but it actually adds a lot more strategy to the game and I would be disappointed if they took it away.

My complaints:
It crashes every so often (not much) but even that isn't much of a problem because the game auto-saves everytime you enter or leave a city/settlement, or enter a battle, or just about anything else remotely important. It can also be a little "buggy" but it's not too bad compared to other games I've played.

Is it worth $50? Well, I didn't pay that much but it would have been well worth it to me.

Just Like Old Times!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: October 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

One of my favorite games from the old SEGA Genesis days was Pirates Gold. After Playstation came out I nearly kept my SEGA just so I would be able to play this game. Finally the game has been rereleased for Windows. There are not alot of differences from the original Pirates. Story line is still basically the same except this time there are real pirates from history that you hunt for like Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Jean Lafitte etc. Alot of the reviewers mention the repetetive nature of the game. My only real major complaint with the game is the ballroom dancing. Unlike on the original game to impress the governors daughter you just needed to keep accumulating titles, wealth and fame. Now not only do you have to do the aforementioned but also dance which is alot harder than it sounds. It is true that the game does get repetitive but I have found that after many days playing the game in a row if you come back to it a few weeks or months later you get hooked on it again. I always end up coming back to this game.

Why, Sid, oh WHY???

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: December 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I really don't know where to start with this one. :-(

First off, I am an avid collector of anything pirate. I have played "Pirates!" since it came out on the C-64, I had an Amiga and a "Pirates! Gold" PC version.

Then news came out that Firaxis was about to release this classic in 2004. I bought it and I wasn't impressed.

This game is highly un- innovative and repetitive. There is this nice new feature of menuet dancing and some nice graphics which make for most of the crashes to desktop on some computers, but that's IMHO not enough to charge a price like that. It's like looking at a book that has the exact same content like the last edition, but some new illustrations have been added.

Gameplay consists principally of boarding a ship, doing a bit of swordplay, boarding the next ship, doing a bit of swordplay and so on ad nauseam...

The original was repetitive, too, but I mean, come on! It came out some fifteen years ago! Computer games have evolved since then! Some nice ideas that were in other pirate sims have been completely dismissed like flying a false flag or burying a treasure of your own.

This game is too realistic for the average arcade player and too shoot- em up for the average simulation player.

If you didn't play the original "Pirates!", there is a slight chance that you might come to like this game (if you overcome the technical troubles), but if you're buying it for old times sake, you had better pass on this one.

A Good Rebirth of the Old

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: February 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I remember playing Sid Meyer's Pirates years ago. I spent many an hour in college playing Pirates when I should have been studying physics or chemistry. I was elated when I heard that Pirates was being updated. I hadn't played Pirates in eleven years when I purchased it again. I stayed up way too late the first night I loaded the game sailing the Caribbean trying to rain havoc on the French and Dutch shipping. The new game has better graphics than the old and many new features. The only part that I don't enjoy as much is the dancing. To earn romance points with governor's daughters you have to dance with them. The dance engine has frustrated me (but then I can't dance in real life) and therefore I don't do very well in this aspect of the game. The game is easy to play and can be enjoyed the moment it is loaded on the computer. Some of the graphics are very repetitive and you tire quickly of seeing them. The Sword battle endings when you board an enemy ship have only a few scenes. That gets boring to watch but doesn't deter from the game play. If you enjoyed the original as much as I did, then you'll enjoy playing the new version. I look forward to many more hours running down Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.

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