Sid Meier's Pirates!

[Nazrat]

Tuesday, November 23 is the release date, right?

Any one have this game or getting it?

I haven't seen a trustworthy review of it yet.  The game whores all love it of course but nothing worth the pixels yet.

Any thoughts?

[schild]

I'll get it tomorrow or the next day from work and play it over Thanksgiving. I've been eagerly awaiting it.

[SirBruce]

Thank you for ordering from EBgames.com.  Your order has been shipped completely.
The status and/or ship date for each item on your order is detailed below.

Here is the status of the item(s) you have ordered:
Sid Meier's Pirates Limited Edition Ordered: 1     Shipped: 1  

Bruce
PS - Thus, I should have it tomorrow.  Along with my 3 Harry Potter DVDs.

[WayAbvPar]

Are you serious? It is out? Good god...I am gonna get ZERO sleep over the holidays. I pick up my new PC this afternoon, and then it is to Best Buy or EB for Vampire and Pirates. HL2 is gonna have to wait...

[schild]

I'm enjoying pirates. Someone here will hopefully be doing a review. but there's 2 odd things:

1. The game seemes to have no save states, also it's roughly 3-4 hours long persession, start to end. Part of what makes it fun.

[SirBruce]

The original game saved, I think, every time you chose to divide up your treasure.  Or maybe you actually had to retire.  (Don't worry, you get an option to change your mind after you see your score.)  Anyway, it would save at that point IIRC.  Isn't there an option to resume a previous game or saved game from the start screen?

Bruce

[schild]

Yes. But it really only takes a couple hours to advance through the game and then divide up and start over. I mean, I'm happy with it. It's fun and more importantly it has the original version of pirates! optimized for Windows XP on the dvd. So it's win/win. For $49, easily worth the price of admission on a limited edition. The regular edition is the same price, doesn't have the original and is on CD.

[Paelos]

IGN says, "WE LIKE MONEY"

There are a lot of great games for the PC this year, particularly for fans of shooters and strategy games. Don't let those distract you from also trying Pirates!. It may not be as technically innovative as titles like Half-Life 2 or Rome: Total War but the combination of ideas and experiences it contains easily make it one of the most original games of the year. It may not depart much from the original game but, truthfully, it simply doesn't need to.

Pirates! is unlike any other game in the current PC catalog. Unless you hate fun, you'll love it.

In short, they give it a 92%. Do they hand out less than 90 anymore? The last comment makes me want to gag. A legit review is needed plzkthx.

[SirBruce]

When you divide up, you're supposed to keep going, not start over!

Bruce

[geldonyetich]

I wonder if they have the nifty music from the Amiga version in this one.

[Nebu]

Unless you hate fun, you'll love it.

What insight...

Is someone going to write a "REAL" review for the benefit of those here that hate fun but love Sid Meier?

I'm very tempted to pick this title up for no other reason than to relive my adolescence.  If you have any comments or thoughts to the contrary, please let me know what you think.

[SirBruce]

Haven't played it yet... just got done installing the extras off the DVD and reading the manual.

Bruce

PS - According to the manual, schild, F10 is Load/Save.

[SirBruce]

Okay, a few things I've found so far just getting started in the game:

1. There's a problem with ATI Radeon drivers that make the cinematics flicker.  The solution, according to the readme file, is to set your ATI settings all the way to the "Performance" level (rather than "Quality" where I usually keep mine).  Of course, this changes a bunch of settings, not all for the better.  It turns out all you need to do is set Anti-Aliasing and Antisotropic Filtering to "Let Application Decide".

2. The manual says you can adjust all the graphics settings through the in-game sliders, but that's incorrect.  The in-game sliders, even at maximum setting, do not enable maximum graphic detail.  To do that, you need to edit the Config.ini file to:

WaterDetail = 4
WorldDetail = 6
ObjectDetail = 3

3. When you first play the game, you aren't allowed to select your diffculty level or play or the character's specialty (defaults to Fencing).  Once you have gone through that sequence and started playing a real game, the next new game you start will allow you to select those settings when you enter your character's name.  Note that if the new Priates! plays anything like the original, then you really want to pick Medicine as your skill in order to have a long enough career to obtain the highest scores.  Of course, if you find yourself totally sucking at Fencing or Dancing, you might have no choice.

Bruce

[SirBruce]

Okay, so now I've actually played it tonight...

It's a lot of fun.  It's pretty much the same as the previous Pirates!, but with just enough changes to make it interesting.  With such a free-form style of gameplay, you really have a lot of options as to how to play the game.

Swordfighting is extremely easy on the lower difficulties.  It's not that you can't lose, but chances are you'll win just by keymashing.  This is good, as it saves you from having to reload all the time whenever you lose a swordfight.  Because of this, looting ships is pretty easy.  However, if you raid a couple of ships near a town, they'll send a pirate hunter after you, and other ships will steer clear.  Very cool.  Keeps you from "camping" a town all the time. :)

They've eliminated the swordfighting your way into town bit, so now to plunder towns you actually need lots of men, which takes time to do.  The new land battle engine is much appreciated, and actually allows you to use some strategy to overcome superior numbers.  However, with semi-randomized terrain and placement, sometimes you aren't in a good position to win.

The new treasure hunting/landmark system when you're on land is a great idea, but it seems hampered by the rather restrictive view you have of the surrounding area.  They do give you a spyglass, but it's quite unwieldly to use.

The new dancing minigame, which you must master in order to get the cute Governor's daughters, are a BITCH.  You're tempted to look at the dancers for your cues - don't.  Watch the little interface and it will flash to tell you what key to hit.  You have to hit the key very quickly for you to hit your mark.  Many songs then repeat the sequence along with the melody, which allows you to know what key to hit next before it lights up so you get a flourish for extra points.  (Supposedly, you're hitting the key on the beat, but they seem out-of-sync to me.)  However, guessing what the next repeating sequence is going to be is pretty much impossible, so there's little use in trying.

All in all, I'm definitely going to be killing many hours with the new Pirates!  What remains to be seen is how long before it gets too boring.  There are many other minor additions like missions and special items and so on which I haven't mentioned that really make the game different from the original, but the underlying gameplay remains the same.  If I have one real complaint, it's that I think the sailing interface (both out in the ocean and during combat) is about 50% too fast.  I wish there was a slider so I could slow it down.  Once I got used to it, it's not TOO bad, but I still feel rushed.

Bruce

[Ironwood]

  The new dancing minigame, which you must master in order to get the cute Governor's daughters, are a BITCH.  You're tempted to look at the dancers for your cues - don't.  Watch the little interface and it will flash to tell you what key to hit.  You have to hit the key very quickly for you to hit your mark.  Many songs then repeat the sequence along with the melody, which allows you to know what key to hit next before it lights up so you get a flourish for extra points.  (Supposedly, you're hitting the key on the beat, but they seem out-of-sync to me.)  However, guessing what the next repeating sequence is going to be is pretty much impossible, so there's little use in trying.

Had to comment on this one, since I just started GTA:SA - and there's a dancing bit in that which sounds similar.  It was a real pain in the butt.  The keypresses were synched to the music and, in theory, you could memorise the dance steps or whatever, but for me it was remembering the easy bits (xxx, OOO, etc) and then mashing the buttons until I got enough points.

We are living in the 'post-dance-dance-revolution' age.

Arg.

[Rodent]

We are living in the 'post-dance-dance-revolution' age.

Arg.

Yepp, same type of mini-game showed up in Leasuire Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.

[Tebonas]

The fuck?

First roleplaying game i have to dance somebody dies!

[Roac]

We are living in the 'post-dance-dance-revolution' age.

Give me your ship, or I will dance 'til you cry.

[WayAbvPar]

They've eliminated the swordfighting your way into town bit, so now to plunder towns you actually need lots of men, which takes time to do. The new land battle engine is much appreciated, and actually allows you to use some strategy to overcome superior numbers. However, with semi-randomized terrain and placement, sometimes you aren't in a good position to win.

Good and bad- I will miss being able to take over Cartagena with just my 1337 fencing skills, but it is probably for the best, realism-wise. The land battles were a PITA in the original; it sounds like they have fixed them nicely.

Bought it last night, but haven't gotten it out of the wrapper (bought Vampire too, so had to check that out first). The best thing about Pirates! is that you can pick up and play it for almost any length of time. It is an amazingly easy way to wile away an hour or a weekend.

[SirBruce]

Well, so far the Journeyman level is just too easy.  I'm going to have to up the difficulty or switch to another era.  Swordfighting is almost a no-brainer.

The cinematic sequences in the game are great; there's a real style to the animations reminiscent of Disney or Dragon's Lair.  Too bad there are not more of them.

For those who don't want to be a pirate and instead just be a peaceful trader, there are more options than ever.  The little pre-city settlements provide missions to transport governors, sugar plants, immigrants, etc. to nearby cities which you can use to gain status and improve the economy of cities so you can trade better with them.  The Indian and Pirate villages you can manipulate to attack other cities to weaken them.  Missions are good for regaining favor with a nation you've been attacking.

I've been unable to locate a Ship of the Line yet, and I've yet to catch the Spanish Treasure Fleet in harbor.  Otherwise I've done just about everything. :)

Bruce

[doubleplus]

We are living in the 'post-dance-dance-revolution' age.

Give me your ship, or I will dance 'til you cry.

Oh, IT'S ON!

[SirBruce]

Woohoo, perfect score of 126.  It took a little while longer than I wanted to get the 4th Ducal title.

Charming governor's daughters can be quite profitable, but you want to make sure you pick a beautiful one for a wife.  Once you're married, you can still woo the other women.  Successful dances will earn you gifts of special items, so you don't have to spend so much gold buying them from guys in taverns.  Later one, they'll give you other clues, and your wife will provide you pieces to Lost City treasure maps, so once you get a piece just visit her over and over again until the map is complete.

I'm still a bit miffed by the dancing thing.  Once I got the special shoes, it's hard to fail, but the game itself really makes no sense.  I've noticed the women do actually give hand gestures as to what move to do next.  If you mess up too many times in a row, it starts giving you lighted indicators on the Numpad map.  The thing is, if you don't hit the key when she indicates to, you might not do the move.  But she almost always indicates before the beat.  In fact, I've found the best way to get special flourishes is to hit the keypad once when she indicates what direction to go, then again a half-second later on what is roughtly the beat of the music.  And half the time, you'll do a flourish, even though you've already entered the manuever.  I don't think that's really how it's supposed to work.  Anyway, cool idea, but I think the timing is all wrong.

Fencing does get more difficult as you get older; you just don't have to reflexes you had before.  Still, the manual says theoretically you could keep playing forever.  In the original game, it would eventually force you to retire.

Still never saw a ship of the line... must only show up in the last era.

Bruce

[Moroni]

Is this action-adventure, or role playing game? I have heard both, but have not discovered anything definitive.

[SirBruce]

Yes.

Bruce
PS - If I had to choose, it's probably closer to action-adventure, as it lacks a lot of traditional "role playing" elements you may have come to expect from computer games.  However, it is open-ended; it's not on rails like most action-adventure games usually are.

[Moroni]

So it is similar to Morrowind only without character progression? And with pillaging, of course.

[SirBruce]

No, I wouldn't compare it to Morrowind at all.

I can't really compare it to anything, which is why the original was so cool.  Perhaps it's like some console action RPGs?  But without character progression.  You do acquire ships and items, and accomplish tasks for points, but your skills don't increase - in fact, they decrase with age.


Bruce

[geldonyetich]

If you've played Pirates of the Carrabean or Seadogs, it's similar to that.   It's not that Sid Meyer's Pirates! ripped those games off so much as the other way around, and this is a remake of the original Pirates! that was released in 1980-something.  

That said though, this remake appears to have actually improved upon the original, and not just graphically.   Though not all the improvements are neccessarily welcome, in general I like the improvements.

[doubleplus]

and this is a remake of the original Pirates! that was released in 1980-something.

So in other words, before you were born?

[geldonyetich]

Born 1976, biatch.   (Granted, this means I have considerably less excuse for being me.)

Hrmph, if I knew there was going to be a debate over my gaming age, I'd have left up the Psi-5 trading company avatar.

So yeah, I was playing the original Pirates! when I was about 10-12 years old on my Commadore 64.   The Amiga port was very nice for the brief period I had an Amiga 1000.

Nestalgia the game does not lack for me.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally got it installed last night about 7 pm- was gonna check it out for a few minutes, then play some poker. At about 12:30 AM I decided it was time for bed, poker having long been forgotten. Just as addicting as the original.

Not a big fan of the dancing sequences, but I get the feeling that there are only a few dances, so eventually I will memorize the patterns and can knock those out of the park. Really like the other additions like special items and skilled crewmembers. I can see A LOT of hours going into this one...nice work, Firaxis!

[Mr_PeaCH]

Bwahaha!  I had no idea this was being re-made, re-issued.  Sid's Pirates! was and is the only PC game my wife could ever stomach to play herself and she loved it.  She'll be so delighted when I give it to her for Xmas.  Talk about your win-win situations.  If only I can resist the siren call to play it for the next 4 weeks.

[Samwise]

Stayed up till 5 AM playing this thing last night.  Definitely a "just one more thing" kind of game.

The dancing minigame is definitely growing on me.  They definitely got the "feel" of being in an unfamiliar social dance (especially the stumbling when you miss a step and have to catch up), and the figures even make a sort of intrinsic sense, since they follow fairly typical folk dance patterns.  Once they stopped giving me the flashing arrow keys and I had to start actually watching the hands, it felt even more like the real thing.

[SirBruce]

Now what's annoying me in the dancing minigame is one wrong mis-step and you lose all the flourish points you've accumulated.  Which means it's almost pointless for me to even try for flourishes unless it's to recover FROM stumbling.

Bruce

[Samwise]

I agree, that bit's kinda obnoxious.  Having the "scoring" be a bit more DDR-like wouldn't hurt.

[WayAbvPar]

The dancing gets easier the more you play- there are only a few patterns, so eventually they start to become familiar. I still fuck up with the forward and back moves, just because they are so infrequent. I still haven't found a broad to marry yet- how many successes does it take?