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Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
It debuted on the Commodore 64 and soon became one of the most popular games ever on the Macintosh. Sid Meier's Pirates! reached its creative peak, however, on the Amiga, where its sumptuous graphics and full stereo soundtrack - featuring a marvelous pirate soundtrack by Jeff Briggs - weren't surpassed on the PC for almost a decade.
Design: Sid Meier with
Arnold Hendrick
Publisher: MicroProse
Genre: Action/Adventure/
RPG/Strategy/Wargame
Difficulty: Easy
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Ostensibly, it's an adventure/role-playing game, where you attempt to carve out a nefarious reputation for your pirate captain before retiring or meeting with an untimely end. But at times, Pirates! is also a fast-action game, where you engage in sword fights (with your choice of refined rapier, basic longsword, or bloody cutlass) and exchange broadsides between vessels on the high seas. There is a definite strategy element, as you explore the Caribbean, traveling from one port to another in search of gold to plunder and enemies to overcome. Pirates! is even a real-time wargame - several years before these surged in popularity - as you maneuver your scurvy dogs over grassland, hills, and even swamps to approach walled towns, fighting everyone from townspeople armed with farm implements to elite Spanish pikemen and cavalry.
 | "[Pirates!] was kind of an adventure game for people who didn't like adventure games..."
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To this day, Pirates! is unique in offering the right balance of real-time and turn-based gaming. If you are into resource management, you can handle your ship's inventories and pore over virtual charts at leisure before leaving port, but once the anchor is raised, the game keeps moving as you meet one adventure after another.
And as with any great Sid Meier game, there is always plenty to do. Buying pieces of obscure maps may lead you to your long-lost sister or even buried treasure. After meeting with the colony governor to negotiate a Letter of Marque, you can converse with his beautiful daughters, flirting or even proposing marriage via a multiple choice menu.
It's hard to imagine a game more steeped in enjoyable period flavor - both historical and Hollywood - than Sid Meier's Pirates! It's unquestionably the best hybrid game ever designed for any platform, offering something for everyone, regardless of what gaming genre they usually prefer. Unless you're one of the few remaining Amiga faithful, pick up the Pirates! Gold version for the PC - just make sure to get the patch.
Next: Red Storm Rising 
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