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I spent way to fucking many hours playing Pirates! on my old Atari ST and so I've been trying to keep my excitement to a minimum about the new remake, else I'll explode from the anticpation.  Well I happened to accidently stumble upon this preview today and I'm impressed.  Just looking at the screenshots it actually looks like they may be attempting to make an updated version of the old game, instead of throwing amazing gameplay out the window like I suspected they would..

Anyways, anyone else love the old game?   Anyone else interested in the new one?

Sounds a bit like the old GTA style of game design applied to Pirates. Of course, this is a good thing. Not so sure about the fruity dancing, but I suppose you have to do something to get your buckle swashed.

I wonder if the duel with the other ship's captain will still be twitch-based? I plundered many a ship and city by parrying every single attack while waiting for my men to slaughter the rest of the bad guys.

I'll be buying this game the minute it goes on sale as what ever day it is released is Righ's new birthday.

You really are a bunch of old farts living in the past, you know.  It's not a bad thing.

I resent that. Now leave me alone so I can play some more Bard's Tale.

DAMN PESKY KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!

I'll probably pre-order this one.  When I was younger, I would have happily devoted my life to becoming Sid Meier's love slave if it got me free access to his latest goodie.  I just hope that he can live up to the hype.  If it's little more than the old Pirates with added shiny, I'll be bummed.

"Look it's that promising sea-dog: Mr. INCOGNITO!" A rowdy group of 88 men ask to join your crew. Do you...

Sign them up?
Turn them away?

I did just the opposite... I'd board ships with crews outnumbered 6:1 and winning by quickly hacking the enemy Captain to pieces until he surrendered.

Bruce

Technically, Pirates! has been remade a few times already.   More recently, with Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Carribean (a.k.a. Sea Dogs 2).    

Which just goes to show that a cruddy implementation can screw up what would otherwise be a great game concept.

Here's hoping those remaking Sid Meyer's Pirates! get it done right this time.

I was just a kid then, and I don't remember all the details, but I loved Pirates. I played the shit out of it. Still, some of my other favorites, Tempest and Defender of the Crown, were remade not too long ago and I was pretty disappointed...I hope the same doesn't happen here.

It's about time for another Wing Commander too.

You won't get a game called "Wing Commander".   Chris Roberts (Mr. Wing Commander himself) split off of Origin quite awhile back and founded Digital Anvil.    Starlancer was the spiritual "next" Wing Commander, and worth checking out (if only just barely) if you've never played it.    Freelancer, of course, kicks all kinds of ass.   Digital Anvil has been acquired by Microsoft.   Origin itself aparently recovered from being gutted internally and, as EA had decreed, is entirely an Ultima company now.   You won't get another Wing Commander from them, but you will get Ultima X (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimaxodyssey/index.html).

I forgot about that. I see Starlancer in the bargain bins all the time, but I've never played it. I did try Freelancer when it came out though, but I didn't like it (though I've heard that mods have made it much better since then. Care to explain which ones?). The combat system was cool (ala Tempest), but the game itself seemed pretty pointless.

I think I read it wasn't really a Chris Roberts game though, that he bailed out midway through, and that he originally planned it to be an MMO. If he ever pulls that off, I'm there.

Freelancer got so annoying after a few episodes of the never ending "all enemies drop what they are doing and turn to shoot you, even if they are taking heavy fire from multiple sources already" crap.

I'm waiting for the heir to Freespace 2 myself. Appenrtly X2 was not it.

Yeah, X2 was the sequal to the original X.  A great space trading game.  A lousy space combat game.  

X2, I understand, is somewhat modable.  I was considering tweaking things a bit so the projectiles moved a bit faster.   However, I'm waiting for X2's price to come down a bit, I'll probably grab it at about the $20 point.

For my part I enjoyed X2 very much.  If it had been a better space combat game with maybe a bit more robust space empire features it would probably have been a ridiculous success.