Arrr! Pirates! be mighty addictive

[ysbreker]

This game is great!

I married the daughter of the governor of Port Royal, killed every pirate of the top 10, sank a fleetload of ships and found back my missing siter!, How far are you guys? (presuming you got the game aswell)

The only downside to this game is the fact that they don't speak a real language, so the taunts you make during the swordfighting are just a bit of mumbling

[manny_c44]

Yeah it is good, but I think it's unbalanced gameplay-wise. I think there should be way more options for setting up trade or becoming an Uber-mayor, or a conqueror, or have the political alliances actually mean something. But even the piratey aspects are off-kilter, the combat and dueling are ass-easy (the jab basically beats everything). I think the fact that you basically have to split up your entire fleet when your crew becomes restless is damn foolish, you should be able to selectively pay-off the ones that have been on for a long time and keep the fresh ones and your ships.

And what the fuck is up with fighting with one ship? It's pretty dissapointing (unless I'm doing something wrong, am I?)

All that said, I still end up playing it for 5 hours straight sometimes, it has that Sid Meier playability.

[JimmyTheFish]

The fighting is only ass easy on lil' bitch mode. Bring it up a couple of notches.

[Simon]

From 'Adventurer' difficulty upwards, the game becomes more of a challenge, you can't just bash the other guy whenever he's getting ready to swing in a swordfight, and ports are less tolerant of you sinking their ships. I think the range of difficulty levels are pretty well-designed, I can't imagine people getting frustrated with this game.

It's a terrifically addictive game for me. I loved the original, with its blend of different fun gaming elements, and they've retained that really well, only now there's added bonuses, like a super-intuitive keyboard interface and a really charming art style. All the little animations on the menu screens just draw you right in. The best word I can think of to describe this game is 'neat', it doesn't really revolutionise any genres, or even build on the original that much, but it's just honed the Pirates! concept into a very fun whole.

The main reason I keep coming back to this game right now is that sense of "I can do better" every time I reach retirement. There's a small pool of mini-games Pirates! revolves around, and you do the same thing every 5 or 10 minutes, but somehow that doesn't get boring or repetitive, probably because I'm fixed on that addictive competition with myself.

[manny_c44]

The fighting is only ass easy on lil' bitch mode. Bring it up a couple of notches.

I've been playing on the second hardest difficulty the whole time, but I'll start a new game on hardest to see if there's a difference (which I doubt).

[Chris]

I've been playing on the second hardest difficulty the whole time, but I'll start a new game on hardest to see if there's a difference (which I doubt).

I remembering thinking the same thing thing when I moved up from the second-highest Heroic mode to the hardest, Legendary, on Halo 2... Ha ha...

[Roderick]

I'll await the Idle Thumbs review on Pirates! before thinking about it. It should be out in two years, methinks. Err but seriously, you can't seem to go wrong with pirates. At least, I don't think so. Exactly how freeroaming is it? Can you really wind down all these differents paths of becoming a guv'ner, or the new Redbeard, or Bluebeard? Or can you just indulge in a Hollywood happy romantic marriage with the tavern wench? Is this all possible, or is it more constricted?

[Simon]

There's not really a freeroaming 'do anything' RPG element. It's all about sailing, battling, fighting, trading, and courting, the objective being to become notorious, and retire wealthy, happy and prosperous. You can become a governor at the end of the game on the retirement screen, but no, there's no paths like that outside of the pirate framework that the game is all about.

Basically you can explore the Caribbean as you wish, and establish allegiances with the English, Spanish, French and Dutch, or just make your badass fleet of war galleons a complete menace to everyone, intercepting everyone's military payloads and treasure fleets.

If you take sides, you will be rewarded for capturing/sinking ships and plundering towns, mainly with higher ranks (eight, from Captain to Duke) which in turn can gain you the interest of a governor's daughter. The romance quest has several stages but you can only have a romance with a governor's daughter.

The other quests involve killing off famous pirates like Blackbeard and Bart Roberts (thus pushing yourself further up the leaderboard of notorious pirates), finding buried treasure, and finding your four lost family members. You really want to do as much of these as possible for a successful career.

So there's a basic framework and not much hidden depth to the game, but I'd say that's no bad thing. Don't expect a 'do anything' feel because, at it's core, it really is just an update of the original's very simple network of mini-games.

[Roderick]

GOod to know that.

Tell me, are any of the (if historically incorrect) famous Netherlandic seamen in the game? Piet Hein, or Admiraal de Ruijter?

[manny_c44]

No, although I also wish the game spanned a broader period of time and more of the globe and made the famous figures an actual prominent component of the atmosphere. Civ on the sea it would be, oh well, maybe the next one .

[Moosferatu]

I'll be getting it for the xbox. Can't wait. It sounds great.

[Erkki]

WHAT'S UP WITH THE WIND?

It's always from the east (varies between SO and NO occasionally). This is getting highly annoying.

[Dalixam]

WHAT'S UP WITH THE WIND?

It's always from the east (varies between SO and NO occasionally). This is getting highly annoying.

I agree. It takes forever to sail and the pirate you have to find are often far away and you move sooooooooooooooooooo slowly

That's the only thing that annoys me about this game and keeps me from playing for more than an hour at a time. I've started to clean my desk and such while waiting for the ship to reach it's destination.

[ysbreker]

try sailing not directly into the wind, these ships aren't your modern sailing yachts. Keep that in mind

read more about sailing and especially the bit about sailing close to the wind here

These ships you sail in are basically incapable to sail anything closer to the wind than just beyond beam reach This has all to do with their rigging.

So try sailing not directly into the wind but more like this:

     /|\
     /
    /
   /             <--wind
  /           
 /
course

I hope you can read my ascii art =)

[Erkki]

But it's still annoying that the wind is always from the east. It may even be realistic or something but blaah...

[Erkki]

Is the game meant to be played so that you sail a few months and then divide the plunder and then sail again?

At first I thought dividing the plunder would be something you do when you "end" the game, but my crew is getting unhappy quite soon...

[Mailman]

Is the game meant to be played so that you sail a few months and then divide the plunder and then sail again?

At first I thought dividing the plunder would be something you do when you "end" the game, but my crew is getting unhappy quite soon...

Yes. That's exactly it. The crew gets unhappy if you've been sailing too long, so it's good to divide after about a year of sailing.

Also make sure you don't take on any new crewmembers before you're about to divide. You might even want to go into battle and deliberately kill some of your men to increase everybody's share of the loot. That way you'll have an easier time recruiting men on your next journey. This was even more important in the original, since you didn't get a raw percentage of the cut, instead you counted as 10 crewmembers or something, and got your share of the plunder accordingly. I kind of like that, and would have liked if they had kept it that way. I remember once in Pirates! Gold when it was down to just me and 2 other crewmembers after I had plundered an Aztec lost city. We were most delighted with our big cut.

[Erkki]

Never played the original.

Right now I've just been selling everything -- food, cannons, other ships -- before dividing the loot. Haven't bothered with lessening their numbers otherwise.

[manny_c44]

Either way you cut it you're pretty screwed, since you lose most of your money waiting around to set sail again.

Speaking of recruiting, is there anyway to get alot more people to turn up at taverns? Besides for when you first set out, I get about 20 in each tavern, and the way the game works out I can hardly if ever get anywhere close to full capcity. I usually have to widdle down the enemy with grapeshot before boarding them because they have a huge manpower advantage.

[Erkki]

If you have better relations with the nation whose town you're in, their tavern gives you more men. 40 was pretty regular for me on my last voyage.

I started to just stick with one or two ships at some point (since only one can do battle at a time anyway and trading is not that interesting) so I don't need that much crew.

[ysbreker]

and still you need about 300 men to fill your ship

also towns that don't have such a good economy are more inclined to give you more men in the tavern.