Sid Meier's Pirates! Review

Another interesting novelty is that the only way to acquire a new ship is to win it on the sea. You can't buy ships anymore; you can only upgrade the ones you own. That is unless you own only trading vessels, in which case the shipwright will offer to sell you a proper warship. This felt a little awkward at first, but I got used to it quickly. To get all the upgrades you'll have to travel to different ports, as no one port has more than a single upgrade to offer. My only gripe about this is that the ship customization aspect is simply too plain and there are not that many upgrades available.

Watch out for the crate! HA! I'm not falling for that. Sure...

No matter how angry I get, I still look like a gay French fashion designer.

The remake of the original 'Pirates!' certainly captures the free-flowing feel and the addictive nature of the original game. Man, hours do go by quickly when you're playing this one. In many ways, this IS the original game.

Ironically, the fact that this is often such a straight port might prove to be one of the game's biggest downsides. While the fencing and the relation of your duel with the captain to the strength of your crew and the overall result, as well as the cute mini-games were... well, cute back in the day, I got the feeling Firaxis didn't really advance the original idea enough to truly bring it into the new millennium. Sure, the melee combat in Sea Dogs was just as simplistic, but at least you could roam the many cities, which would give the player a greater sense of immersion. While you can scour the land from a bird's eye view in the new 'Pirates!' sailing into a port will simply give you a choice of locations to visit - just like in the original game. I must admit I was a little disappointed with this.

Even so, 'Sid Meier's Pirates!' remains a must-buy for both the younger fans who know only of Pirates of the Caribbean and us old, scurvy sea dogs, who just feel like losing ourselves once again in the magical world of 'Pirates!'. At first I thought this was just another shameless attempt to milk more money out of an old franchise (a-la what they did with the new Larry game), but thankfully, Sid Meier's Pirates! rises above this ignoble practice to offer a very polished and fun, albeit still inherently retro remake of an old classic.