Not only did I get a promotion, but now I had a wealthy town to repair my ships and buy my trade goods. It's possible to almost completely take over the map on behalf of one world power or another. Meanwhile, the simulation hums along in the background: wealthy towns will be raided by pirates, poor hovels will get growth spurts, natives will assault colonists, and so on.
Sometimes the open-endedness of the game leads to funny results. At one point I sacked a town, then sailed in and talked to the Governor. He seemed pretty non-plussed about the whole affair and actually promoted me to Major for defeating some pirates earlier. I guess they played it pretty fast and loose back in those days. The graphics, therefore, are bold and exaggerated, cartoony in many respects. And it works! There's a sense of fun throughout.
Colors are bright and crisp, heroes are bold and swaggering, Governors strut pompously, and villages look like they were ripped out of an adventure storybook. The ships are loaded with detail. It's thrilling to see them rushing through the waves, reflections rippling, with dolphins leaping and frolicking alongside.
The sails move and flutter appropriately, giving you the feel that you're at the helm of a real ship rather than some static toy. You can even customize the insignias on your sails and flags. What's great is that many of the little graphical subtleties in the game tell you something important for gameplay purposes.
Poor towns will have ragged banners flying over the houses as you sail by, so you can tell the merchants probably won't have a lot of money to offer for your goods. When fighting other ships at sea, you can actually see each individual gunport on the sides open and little tiny cannons roll out. They roll out one by one as the ship's guns become active, so you can see at a glance if your enemy is ready to fire a full broadside or not. The ambient sound effects are among the best I've heard in recent games.
The lap of waves and the rumble of distant storms really give you a sense of place. Listen closely and you'll hear the cacophonous howl of pirates singing a shanty during long voyages when morale is high. The catchy music you hear in towns varies based on the nationality and wealth of the town, and the instruments change as you move from place to place. I wish the heroic music at the end of combat could've been a little stronger, but overall the graphics and sound in the game exude a clean polish that really enhances the piracy experience.
Speaking of polish, Pirates! Navigating through menus and switching from mode to mode happens almost instantaneously with no loading screens.
That's important! Your pirate career is limited by the age of your pirate -- eventually all those months in Spanish prisons take their toll and you begin to grow old. Your sword moves will be slower, your ship's guns won't fire as accurately, your ships won't sail as fast, etc. When you think you're well past your prime, you can sail into a friendly port and retire.
Instead of getting a single score or ranking at this point, a whole screenful of information awaits. You can see how many buried treasures you found, how many women you wooed, your ranking among the top ten pirates, how much of your family you rescued, and so on.
There's even a few paragraphs of prose describing the epilogue of your pirate tale, based on your achievements, your rank, how much money you wrapped up with, etc. After a marathon game session and the end of a tumultuous career, it's not uncommon to grumble "I can do better These details will shape up little by little your adventure. There are no straight lines in the sea, and it is the same with this game.
You'll never have to follow just one path, but rather you'll end up making your own story. And if you play your cards well and a governor may even give you his daughter's hand in marriage after a dance. You even get to play the dance sequence in a Beatmania style. Not at all, but that's the short answer. So, what makes it different?
All the mechanics are way more polished, keep in mind that this game came out almost 20 years after Pirates!. Not only that, the older title was more straightforward. Older games couldn't store as much information as we can in modern times. So a lot of things had to be cut down to be able to run the game. New minigames were added, tons of new content, not to mention the new visuals and sound.
The gameplay is completely updated. The older title didn't even have the main storyline available here. So you can say that it's more of a spiritual sequel than a remake. Sid Meier rarely if ever disappoints, and this title is no exception to the norm. The mix of so many different game genres makes the game an addicting and fun experience. You'll want to keep on playing more every time you sit down. It certainly owes a lot to the original title, and it makes better something that was already amazing.
An excellent game anyone should play. Graphics and Sound: The visuals are the main thing this game's lacking. They are not terrible, but even by the time of release, they looked outdated. It compensates with a nice art direction, and even with that, it leaves to be desired.
Gameplay: Every genre mixed in this game controls differently, and they are all easy to understand. So many missions, possibilities, and customization make it an amazing title. Sound: The music is great too, remember that this comes from a time before the Pirate of the Caribbean movies came out. Things were different back then, and the best reference to any pirate-related content was Monkey Island.
And while this soundtrack is still not at that level, it's still great. Sid Meier is a refreshingly modest fellow. Despite the praise heaped on him by pundits over the years - some of whom would have you believe he invented interactive gameplay as we know it - Meier is far more interested in citing his own influences than the countless imitators that came after.
Released in for the Atari and Commodore 64, Seven Cities was a seminal influence on the Baltimore developer. Up until Pirates! Having achieved a certain amount of success with these titles however, Meier was eager to explore new themes, and Seven Cities provided him a key to unlocking new avenues of gameplay.
That game had the biggest influence on the design of Pirates! It showed it was fun to explore, discover and be part of a grand historical world. Seven Cities casts you as an explorer, sent to colonise and conquer the New World - but unlike so many other games with an appreciation of history, it was no overburdened simulation.
Instead, it offered a level of accessibility and charm uncharacteristic of the time, and brought with it a number of small gameplay innovations that, though crude, remain largely unexplored to this day. As an historical aside, Meier was so enamoured with the game that he later managed to coax its creator, Dan Bunten, away from EA to work at Microprose, where Meier was co-founder.
Among his new colleagues, Bunten was keen to develop Civilization , yet stood aside for Meier, and so it was he who cemented his status as a legendary game designer. Bunten is sadly no longer with us, but you can't help but wonder how different Civ might have been if he'd headed the project With his efforts on Gunship complete and having finished designing the third in the respected Command' series, Conflict In Vietnam , Meier had already begun work on Pirates! However, his interest in the subject and the desire to develop a game set during the buccaneering days of New World expansion was ignited long before.
I've always been intrigued by pirates, he says. As a kid, I'd read books about pirates and play pirate games, so it was kind of a dream come true to design my very own pirate game. I wanted Pirates! Of course, since I'd spent so much time as a kid learning about pirates, the research was already done. The challenge was finding a way to deliver the experience to players that I'd always envisioned.
I wanted to make a game that would give players a chance to be a true pirate hero - living the adventurous life of a pirate in the 17th century Caribbean. Meier continues: "What we had in mind was a version of a classic adventure. There were loads of adventure games back then, and in most of them you had to type in commands letter-by-letter.
We wanted a game that had the same kind of depth, but which felt more like a movie, where you go from scene to scene. The important thing is that, back then, games didn't have to fit in with a genre - it didn't have to be a first-person shooter or an RTS. All these elements - action, strategy, combat, trading - would seamlessly fit together to tell a story, whether you wanted to become a famous pirate, find treasure or make money.
Finding the right team to help bring his vision to life wasn't difficult. Meier's list of previous collaborators was without equal, and his role as co-founder of Microprose meant he could pick from a list of prodigious talent, among them Michael Haire who'd worked on Gunship and would later create grapnics for Civ, Civ II and Alpha Centauri. We had a great group of talented folks already in place at Microprose, he agrees.
As a matter of fact, my current partner at Firaxis, Jeff Briggs, and a number of our artists worked on the original Pirates! For Meier, getting the team he wanted was key to the success of Pirates! I started with a playable prototype and then we played and improved, played and improved, until we'd made a game that we thought was really fun. The great thing about this approach is that we constantly tested, balanced and changed things as we went, so in the end we made the game we intended to make.
This process took about a year for the original Pirates! Of course, the process takes a little longer these days. And while some developers would baulk at Meier's organic development style, there's no faulting the results. Not only is Pirates! And as you can tell from his continued efforts to update the game, Meier's regrets are technology-related and not to do with gameplay.
Clearly, we didn't have the graphics technology we have today, so I had to rely on the player's imagination to bring the gameplay to life visually, he says. My philosophy has always been to create a great gameplay experience regardless of the technology available at the time.
The gameplay always comes first. As for the game itself, I was able to make the game I'd hoped to make. Like so many of Meier's early games, Pirates! Versions for the Apple and PC appeared almost immediately thereafter, but it wasn't until that the ST and Amiga received bit conversions.
The Apple version was a straight port and I worked with another programmer on the project to produce it," explains Meier. Other versions had separate development teams and I worked with them too. You can also simply try to amass wealth, collect lovers in every port, find and reunite your missing family, or simply defeat rivals to become the most infamous Pirate in the West Indies. The game doesn't dictate your goals, it simply turns you loose in an interactive Caribbean.
Gameplay itself consists of several mini-games seamlessly integrated into each other, flowing smoothly from one to the next. You'll sail around the sea looking for your next adventure, zoom in for ship-to-ship combat if attacked, then swing onto the deck for a swordfight once the two ships crash together.
Each part of the game is enjoyable; but together, the sum is greater than the whole, providing that magical addictiveness that keeps you rooted to your computer for 'just a couple more minutes' for hours on end.
One of the most compelling things about Pirates! Controls are a snap. While many PC games these days belabor players with complex systems that require quick-reference cards or tutorial missions to wade through, Pirates! Sailing around is completely intuitive. All the buttons you need for the mini-games are displayed on the screen, with your fingers rarely leaving the number pad.
Hell, you could probably play it if you had a pirate hook for a hand. You can also adjust the game's difficulty between each cruise, so even in the middle of your first game you can gradually adjust the game to match your skill level. In many ways it's like a great console game: easy to just pick up and play, proof that great PC games don't have to be complicated to be enjoyable.
But just because Pirates! The different game elements swordfighting, ship-to-ship combat, land battles, even ballroom dancing all feed off of and interact with one another to make for an engaging whole.
Let's take the romantic part of the game, for example. When you meet with the Governor of a town, he may introduce you to his daughter. If she's beautiful, you may not even stand a chance with her until you rise to the rank of Baron within that nation. Rising in rank will require you to sink that country's enemies, capture enemy outposts, escort important cargoes, or any number of tasks elsewhere in the game. Once you're a Baron, you can get invited to the ball where you can play a Dance-Dance Revolution-style mini-game in order to win over the beauty's heart.
If you succeed, she may give you a hint on where to find a family member, or an item that might come in handy -- like an improved sword that will make swordfighting easier elsewhere in the game. A return visit to the Governor's daughter might reveal that she has a jealous boyfriend, and you'll need to fight a duel with him using the swordfighting game.
It's all very integrated; success in one part of the game opens up new doors in the rest of the game, and you can always use one set of skills to circumvent your weakness in other areas. Another example of game design elegance is in the ship-to-ship combat.
Several ships are available, giving you several strategic options. Do you go with small, fast sloops as many pirates did historically? Or do you load up a war galleon with hundreds of pirates and dozens of guns, capable of matching even the largest of ships broadside-for-broadside? Ammo is important, as well: shooting ordinary cannonballs will damage an enemy's guns and crew, but may sink her.
Grapeshot will spare the hull but will massacre the crew at close range. Chain shot is aimed at rigging and sails in order to slow the enemy down, useful in any number of situations. Before using different ammo you'll have to upgrade your ship at different ports. When two ships collide, you'll leap onto the enemy ship and begin to swordfight with the opposing Captain; here, the number of crew remaining on each vessel acts almost like a life gauge in a fighting game.
If you're a really good swordfighter, you will be able to take over a ship even if you're vastly outnumbered. Conversely, if you're a poor swordfighter, you'll want to beat an enemy ship into submission before it comes to hand-to-hand. The different parts of the game feed off of each other in that respect.
The game world itself combines several simple elements into a pretty fun little simulation of a Caribbean economy. Towns and cities and outposts can belong to any particular major power. You'll see ships zooming back and forth between them, impacting local economies. You may witness boats of refugees landing in a city, causing it to grow, for example.
You can genuinely impact the game world. For instance, I assaulted a Spanish stronghold and installed a French ruler. Now it was a poor French stronghold.
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