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Buggy and PC (and update to review)

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 65 / 95
Date: November 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I love the original Pirates back in the C64 days.
This one? Well, it won't run. I'm not alone, tons of folks are having problems, and not just the same problem but a whole slew of them.

Can you say "Let's rush it out the door for the holidays?" Well, Atari sure can. Way to ruin one of the most anticipated games.

Oh, and a nice touch of political correctness: they've dropped tobacco as a trade item. Hey, ley's pretend there was no slavery. Oh, wait. we already do that.

Update:

I originally gave this game one star becuase it would not run. I finally got it to run, so I was able to play it.

The game is much like the original on the Commodore 64 was, and that is a good thing. That game was one of the greatest games ever put together. It's a "formula" game, but the formula is superb. Get ship, hire crew, pillage and/or trade, run missions, repeat.

The updated version changes the play very little. The sneaking into town (as a separate sequence) and dancing are new, and are not very good. Too long and tedious, and not in keeping worth the fast pace of the game. But these are things you don't really need to do, and you can opt to do as I do and simply avoid them.

One of Sid' greatest talents is easy to overlook, becuase it's always in front of you. The interface. While others are creating "simple" interfaces involving Byzantine collections of mouse menus and button combination, we have here a wonderful keyboard interface.

All maneuvering, fighting, etc. can be done right from the number pad and/or cursor keys. It's simple, fast, and intuitive. Any idiot can design complexity. Designing simplicity take genius.

The game is not without some issues, and there should be a patch soon to correct compatibility problems or at least one would expect such a patch soon. The game play itself has some minor quirks, mainly relating to ships "clipping" through harbors and other ships while in battle. None of these detract substantially from the experiencing.

So, now that I have played the games, well, it's as addicting as the old version was. If you have played the old C64 version (the ports to other platforms don't count, as those were just plain nasty) then you will want to get this. If you have never played the game before, then you must get it, as you have missed out on one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time.

I can't edit my rating, but I'd give the game 5 stars once it is working. Clearly, if it doesn't run on your machine it's a one star game.

KP

How can you review something before it comes out???

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 29 / 142
Date: September 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It amazes me that people actually review something before it actually gets released (and there's no beta or demo version out either).

Yes, we all know the original Pirates was one of the most highly addicting/best games of all time. If this game is half as fun as the original it will be a huge success. However...all you have to do is look at some other "remake" games to realize sometimes this doesn't happen...developers "monkey" too much with the game play and it ruins the game (e.g. Master of Orion III). Wait until the game is released (or you've atleast played a demo or beta version before you rate something--otherwise it's just useless conjecture...)

DO NOT BUY! PIECE OF CRAP!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 16
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Hmm. I bought this game on Thursday and it hasn't worked long enough to do anything with it. While my computer more than meets all the basic requirements for this game, it seems to be plagued by bugs and won't stop quitting or causing fatal errors. I have a brand new computer I just bought a few weeks ago at Costco, and rather than this being an awesome first game for me to buy, this has been a headache. When I tried to contact customer service at Firaxis, they were very friendly, but less than helpful. I was really excited to get and play this game, but I've been so disappointed that I can't get it to play. I can remember playing the old Pirates! Gold on Sega Genesis and was excited to hear about this game being available on PC, and for me this disappointment has been crushing. My advice to you is that if you have the money to burn and lots of time to spend contacting customer service recieving answers that don't work, then you should buy this game. If not, then I think your money would best be spent on anything else.

Can't get it to work

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 14
Date: March 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have a ATI Radeon 7500 Video Card w/64Mb but the game quits
in port with a VPU Recover message: Graphics no longer responding to driver commands. What the heck is T&L compatible?

I guess this would be a nice game if I could get it to work.
Could someone recommend a Video Card that will work. It needs
to be plugged into the PCI slot on my Dell 2400 Desktop.

Quality issues...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: December 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was really excited to get this game. I bought the special edition DVD. After the very lengthy install, I have had no end of problems.
1) Copy protection keeps tripping on an original disk
they have some sort of 3rd party copy protection that seems to have compatibiliy issues. Be ware.

2) When the Copy protection does work, it takes 5 min...
Start the game, go to the bathroom (don't forget to wash your hands), go pop some popcorn... Then the game starts...

3) Graphics glitches...
I could not play the game 10 min strait without the graphics going all wonky. This is on a very fast system, new video card, with fresh drivers.

It seems that Atari should have spent more time on a playable game instead of worrying about copying it...

Doesn't work on many systems

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This does not work on any of my systems. There is absolutely Zero customer support for this item. They will not answer their help line or their emails. Be Very Careful if you plan to buy this as a gift. It seems like it would be fun if it only worked.

most crashing game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have had this game 2 weeks. It played great for about 3 hours then crashed. I have uninstalled/reinstalled, tried to patch it with available online patch, just keeps crashing every 3-8 minutes. I think class action lawsuit may be in order as the online gaming sites are full of people like me that would love to play the game but can't keep it running long enough. Have tried to contact Firaxis but their website is also completely messed up, SQL errors... I want my money back!

SAD

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 14
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have a new computer 2+ GHz Processor, 512 MB Ram 160 GB hd space well over the minimum requirements for the game. I downloaded corrective patch 1.02 for this game from Sid Meiers website. I started playing this game. It seemed like an interesting and fun game, I just started to get the gist of it then WHOOPS crash. Crash retry crash, crash again. wow I'll try to save it every few seconds. crash crash crash. Not fun.

What a disappointment!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I received the game with anticipation one day ago. First of all, it took two times to download the game onto my PC. After which, I didn't even make it to the options screen when my computer froze! I had to remove all the software again and try to install it again. After a long download time, it froze again. I packaged up the software and sent it back to amazon for a refund. I'm hoping that my computer is not damaged!

buggy, rushed, sloppy and terrible support

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 18
Date: December 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I really think the title says it all. Its a terrible product, I have never seen such a buggy game. Its so fundamentally flawed that they mislabelled what the actual game disc is.
The game itself is almost impossible to install correctly the first time and the graphics and vid is almost cartoonish.
PASS on this poorly executed game.

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