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Best single player experience.......ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: July 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is adictive. Very addictive. It's about as open ended as games come in that it has objectives, but you don't need to follow them...at all. You can go around making a name for yourself on the high seas without completing a single objective and your enjoyment wouldn't be diminished a bit. If the "open ended" games of recent like GTA have you bored with the "drive around, shoot this, run from that" style of open ended gameploy, give this a shot and you'll most likely be loving it. Any improvements? Graphics could be better, and I wouldn't mind hearing actual spoken dialogue, but that's it. Enjoy!

addicting as pot

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: July 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game is so addicting when I f irst started playing this game I thought it sucked the graphics were kind of cartoony but after i played for like 15 minutes i couldnt stop there is so much to do in this game. you can do missions get married capture ships piss of countries by sinking their ships kill pirates plunder and pillage my favorite or a bunch of other stuff this is the true pirate experiance

I know it's a refurbed classic but...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Of course all the things you can do are great ideas, but how you can do them and what you spend your money on gets old, fairly quick. The game progresses from real easy to difficult and the controls for swashbuckling are too limited for the type of increase in difficulty. The rest of the game play gets repetitious and the same old routines are too linear to retain their luster.
Great for a rental, for sure!!

Pretty good...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First, I'm not a fan of RPG's; so why did I buy one? I'm a fan of the pirate genre and thought I'd give it a try. This is the first RPG that I've play that kept my interest.
I didn't like it at first seeing that there was hardly any action, but I guess for this type of game, it has more action than one would expect.
Open ended?, I guess, if you think your character getting old and worn out and having to retire being open ended. Then you have to start over with a new character. As the game goes on your sword fighting abilities get worse. I chose my first character to be an expert in fencing, and at 31 he's already going downhill.
But there is something addictive about the gameplay at first. I started and without realizing it 6 hours had flown by.
If you like to have control over your character you probably know that an RPG is not for you.
It does get repetative, but it's still a good game overall. One word of advice and something I found out pretty quick, save your game often(I do like a good game save) as you can accidently get your ship stuck in between a small group of islands, or a cove, and can't sail away. The only recourse is to revert to the last saved game.
Like I say, I have never been a big fan of RPG's, but I have to say I like this one.
It is kind of like "Sims on the high seas" as you have to maintain food and morale for your crew. Your health will decline no matter what, and eventually you'll be forced to retire, so much for open ended.
Searching for buried treasure could have been a little better. You just follow a map on sea and weigh anchor at that spot and all of a sudden you have the treasure. A little walking around on land would have been better.
There are some scenes where you sneak through towns at night, slip up behind guards and then the AI takes over and knocks them out.
If you board a ship and your crew is outnumbered, you can do a little sequence of button punching to even up the odds.

Maybe someday it'll be possible to have a combo RPG and action/adventure game all in one, where one can build up the character and still have a 360 camera angle in fight scenes where you control all of your character's moves.
I couldn't really decide between 3 or 4 stars, but finally gave it 4 because, it is pretty good and pretty entertaining for an RPG.

Know going in...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: July 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Before you buy this game, know going in that it is not one game, but a collection of mini-games. Unlike other Sid Meier turn-based titles (e.g. Civilization) where strategy and forethought are paramount to achieving one objective (in many different ways), Pirates keeps you busy performing mind-numbing, monotonous tasks. The fact that there's an overall "plot" or "quest" means very little. The plot in Pirates is about as meaningful as getting the high score for solitaire AND Tetris. Clearly (as other reviews suggest), some enjoy these little games -- and you might, too. Just don't go in with the wrong expectations like I did.

Fun In more Ways Than One

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: August 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's a pirate game based in the late 17th-century Caribbean Islands where the player starts out as a young teenage boy and can assume one of several roles. You can be a plundering rogue taking treasure from any ship in your path and sacking ports, or dedicate your life to avenging your family.

Pros:
- Excellent open ended adventure. You can either exclusively complete quests that guide to the rogue who kidnapped your family, sail around and pillage and plunder as you want, be a privateer for a specific country and target only the enemies of that country, or a combination of these, with a bit of trade strategy thrown in for flavor.
- Mixture of mini-games, story lines, and game play elements maintains interest level. Various quests abound to move the story along, or you can take your chances and just capture ships at your leisure.
- Several styles of gameplay are included, such as: turn-based strategy, stealth, real-time ship-to-ship combat, duels with swords, even a rhythm based dance game
- Addictive gameplay keeps one playing just a little while longer, which in turn becomes hours
- Whimsical approach to subject keeps the game from taking itself too seriously. What violence is here is cartoon-like, at it's absolute worst.
- Minimal resource management makes the game approachable without sacrificing gameplay or strategy. Icons indicate crew morale and food supplies, and hints abound in various pause menus.
- Interface and controls adapted well for the Xbox. The world map overlays nicely onto to the screen during gameplay, avoiding the need to constantly switch from map to gameplay.

Cons:
- Serious Bugs/Quality Control Issues: At one point in the middle of a quest central to the story, my ship "flew" over to the Pacific Ocean side of Central America, an area you can't get to through "normal" gameplay. I stayed there for about 4 years in game time, letting the crew run out of food and mutiny, hoping that either one would at least toss me back into my last port. Unfortunately, that never happened, forcing me to restart the game. To add to the frustration, the save points didn't record my last few conquests and quest accomplishments up to that point, forcing me to redo them all over again. My fault for not saving more often, but the game shouldn't throw the player into non-navigable areas either.
- Odd save points: It lets you save at any point on the open sea, but it neither saves the game nor allows you to save when you pull into a port. Having the ability to save while in port would have been nice as ports make good landmarks.
- Some repetitive gameplay: It can get a bit repetitive at times, having to do the same types of actions repeatedly to move the story along or progress on a given quest.

All in all, a solid, entertaining game. The various styles, gameplay modes, and difficulty levels give the game good replay value overall. While repetitive in some places, and buggy in others, it easily entertains more in a few minutes of playing than other games do in an hour.

OK, but not great

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: August 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I liked Pirates years ago when I first played it on PC, and was looking forward to trying it on Xbox. While the game is fun, and parts are very amusing, it grows monotonous after a few hours.

The sailing dynamics are somewhat realistic, and the ship-to-ship combat is usually quite good. The swordfighting was interesting until I found a 'hole' that involves taking a particular weapon and merely hitting 'A' over and over again ... that took all the challenge out of all but the most terribly outnumbered swordfights. The Pike-and-Shot battles on land are adequate, though you grow tired of them soon enough. The game's worst feature, in my opinion, is the dancing. It's long. It's annoying. At the higher difficultly levels, it's difficult. (I'm not a twitch gamer, and even if I was, I'd save my talents for twitching something *other* than ballroom dancing). Luckily you don't *have* to bother with the dancing, but you give up an element of the storyline and some nice loot doing so.

Overall, I played the game for about six hours before growing tired of the repetition. It was quite easy, even at higher difficulty levels, to go and capture the best ship in the game, and proceed to wipe the floor with everything I ran into. Then it simply became repetitive, as even the 'hard' fights were none too difficult.

Pirates Perfected

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Sid Meier's Pirates! For the Xbox is a updated version of an old pc game. The updated version was originally created once again for the pc but is now ported to the Xbox with some changes from the original. Pirates! is according to Gamerankings.com the 780th best game overall and the 134th best game on the Xbox scoring a overall average of 83% from game ranking sights, but it is still definitely one you should not miss.


There are a large variety of activities to be done in Pirates!. After the game shows the opening movies and you pick the settings for your game you are left with a single ship and the whole world to play in. There are a variety of missions you can go on, but none of them are required. You can seek out pirates to kill for fortune and glory, participate in cannon battles between ships, loot cities, have sword battles, search for buried treasure, or marry the Governor's daughter.


The graphics in the game are quite good and change depending on the situation. If you are in a sword fight or dancing at a ball the graphics are detailed in a mixture of realistic and cartoon style. During the bulk of the game you look at a above head view of your ships as they sail the seas. The only disappointing graphics are when you chose to attack a city; I think they could have done a better job then they did on that part though it may be true to the style of the original game.


There are a few differences between the pc and Xbox versions of the game. All of the differences are good ones in my opinion. The dancing sequences which I found almost impossible on the pc are now much easier. The pace of attacking a city was greatly increased; in the pc version it could take an hour or more to siege a city. There is an optional chain of quests randomly assigned that can be seen as an optional storyline. You do not have to spend hours on land searching for treasure anymore; if you try to land near the treasure you will automatically find it. And finally the sword duels have slightly altered controls for the Xbox controller making them slightly harder.


Sid Meier's Pirates! is a fantastic game. Unlike other games that you can beat and get tired of this one has no real ending; as your pirate gets older he gets worse at everything he does so you have to decide when to retire. This is a fun addictive game that will keep you coming back for years to come. Sid Meier himself said on G4 TV that this was the game he got the most mail over the years to remake. Give it a try and you may be sending out email for a new version in a few years.

SID MEIERS SECOND BEST GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 14
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

sid meiers second best game while "civilization" is the best.

Sid Meier's Pirates

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 41
Date: October 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game isn't Sid Meier's Ninjas! I just have to accept that and review that game I actually played instead the potential awesomeness I could've played. In opposition to the PC version, the XBOX version has some hastily tacked-on plot (something about having to save your family from an evil baron.) Like I'm sure everybody else did, I choose to ignore all that in lieu of terrorizing the French.

You may remember that Sid Meier is responsible for the insanely addicting Civilization III. Pirates! is a bit of a change of pace in terms of scope - instead of overseeing the fate of an entire civilization for several thousand years, you're limited to taking charge of a single pirate crew in the Caribbean from the mid- to late-1600s. (Since most pirates never got past the wizened age of 45, this makes sense.) After naming your captain and choosing a proficiency (most would choose to improve their dueling prowess, but I choose Wit and Charm for more effective wooing) you're given control of a small ship.

Sailing around and just randomly attacking passing boats can be highly amusing, if not totally broken. Case in point: I was in my insignificant sloop when I saw the Queen Anne's Revenge sail right on by. Channeling my inner Johnny Depp, I decided to go in for the kill. Out-gunned and severely outmanned, I knew the first volley of 15 cannonballs (in opposition to my three) would knock me right out of the water. Instead, I found myself to be... unharmed. I then did what any completely insane pirate would do--bashed my pathetic heap of timber against the legendary ship.

Onboard was the fearsome Blackbeard, flaming beard and all. After a suprisingly easy game of Simon Says that required all of three button presses, I had slain the most fearsome pirate on the high seas and taken his ship. If that isn't evidence of a game in need of balancing, I'd like to know what is!

(Speaking of Blackbeard, my dad is writing a miniseries all about him. Check it out.)

That's basically an apt description for the entire experience: an abundance of strung together mini-games. You've got the "dancing to win the affections of the governor's daughter" game, which I prefer to think of as "virtual finger torture." Other examples include the "laying siege to a city" pseudo-RTS and the "sneaking into a hostile area" stealth portion. Needless to say, playing gets to be repetitive in a big hurry.

BOTTOM LINE: I'm not saying you won't be highly amused for a couple of hours. Quite the contrary. Once the novelty wears off, though... I'm afraid you might come to the same horrified realization that I did. You're just playing the illegitimate child of a Mario Party game.

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