It's been a long while since the days of the of the original Sid Meier's Pirates!, published in 1987 and hailed by its creator as his most beloved game. Today, the remake remains an incredible mix of adventure, strategy, and rhythm. With updated graphics, it is certainly a beautiful game with bright colors and reflections off the cool blue waters. Not to mention a nice selection of ship designs, including fast sloops and giant galleons modeled after real ships used during the time period. They are as fun to look at as they are to blast apart with cannons, and debris will go flying as cannon balls fly through them.

The player takes on the role of an up-and-coming captain whose family was forced into servitude by a Spanish captain who wronged them. With nothing more than a small ship, a small crew, and a small bit of gold, the player seeks out to make a life for himself. There are no limits to what the player can do from then on. They can get straight to trying to rescue family members, take down notorious pirates, steal booty from trade vessels, or gain favor with local governors by sinking the ships of their enemies. Impress the governors enough, and you will move up the ranks, and even catch the eye of their daughters and be invited to the ball. Sailing around the seas of the Caribbean, with a total map spanning from Florida down to the northern tip of South America, players are free to explore to their heart's content.

While it is pretty easy to sail around and loot every passer-by, there are political factors involved. It won't be long before ports start opening fire on you. At that point, you could choose to either sneak into town or attack the port, which sets your crew against the local guards in a turn-based strategy setup. However, to amass a crew big enough to take a town takes time, and they don't work for free. You'll need a steady flow of income and a large stockpile of wealth in order to keep morale high enough so they don't mutiny. That means making sure that there's enough money on hand to guarantee that each member of your crew, a number which is sure to expand, gets a large cut - especially if you plan on sailing for a long time. A crew with low morale might not return the next time you stop at port, or worse, they'll mutiny and run off with one of your ships. Eventually, you'll want to divide the plunder, so that your assets will be liquidated down to one ship and every crew member takes his share. Then you'll have a chance to choose between retiring, starting again at your current difficulty setting, or moving on to the next difficulty setting.

One way of making money is by setting up a trade route, but the fastest way is to raid passing ships and steal their gold and cargo. This method has both benefits and repercussions, as countries are often at war with each other. Benefit one nation and be rewarded, but don't expect a warm welcome at enemy ports. At times, being on the wrong side of a war means that merchants will refuse to trade with you. However, gaining favor with a nation leads to promotions, which means a multitude of benefits including easier crew recruitment to cheaper ship repairs. So, it becomes a complex balancing act to stay on everyone's good side.

But it's not all about looting and money. Few titles have the amount of gameplay variety that Pirates! offers. Players will get a chance to find buried treasure using maps purchased from mysterious wanderers. They will also be able to go on special missions to capture wanted criminals. Or, they can impress beautiful women with their dancing skills, which amounts to a very amusing type of music rhythm game where the player uses the keyboard's numeric keypad to follow the woman's hand gestures. Pirates! is primarily played through the keypad, for everything from steering your ship at sea to controlling your moves during a swordfight. The controls are very intuitive and easy to learn, which significantly adds to the fun factor.

During ship battles, depending on the upgrades you have provided for your ship, you will have the option to disable the ship unto surrender or step aboard and try to take the whole ship by force. The latter leads to a captain-to-captain sword battle while the two opposing crews go at it. The crew serves as a kind of time limit and morale plays a huge role here. As you are clashing swords, your crew is doing the same thing. If one side's crew is completely overcome, that captain automatically loses. A crew with high morale will fight harder and longer, overcoming odds for a longer period of time. The only thing that remains frustrating about ship battles is the force of nature. If you approach a ship from the wrong side, against the wind, then you'll have a hard time getting close to your opponent, offering a great chance for them to get away. At times when both you and your opponent take heavy damage, with sails destroyed, both parties are stuck dead at sea without any way out or means to bring in a fresh ship from your fleet to take over.

As your pirating career progresses, so does your life. Your character will eventually grow old, and sword battles will become increasingly difficult, as his reflexes won't be what they used to be. The player can continue with a game for as long as he or she wants, but the game will become increasingly more difficult. As frustrating as this aspect might seem at times, it forces the player to retry the game with a different approach, which is a very interesting means of promoting replayability.

The only truly upsetting point that we had is found only on the special edition DVD version of the game. The DVD boasts a collection of videos with Sid Meier and his team working on the concepts of Pirates! and how they went about putting together the game. However, the video quality is extremely low and heavily pixilated. It goes without saying that a single DVD is much more convenient than numerous CD's, but it is disappointing to have all that space available and find low-quality video as bonus material, especially when the game itself is so good.

Altogether, Pirates! is a fun, lighthearted game with plenty of different modes of play. Despite the sword and ship battles, there are no scenes depicting blood or death. Crews are knocked out of their respective ships and float on the water on debris. It is not a death blow that usually decides a duel, but usually an intervening vase or bottle that knocks the opponent out. There seems to be a little something for almost everyone, and the controls are easy enough for anyone to pick up, making Sid Meier's Pirates! a rare jewel among an ocean of games.

Our Final ScoreGood

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