Better than Sid Meier's Pirates 2004 remake...

User Rating: 8.5 | Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas PC
If you were fortunate enough to ever have played Pirates! when it came out in 1987 or at least before the 90's stormed in with all sorts of new adventure and roleplayying games, then i'm sure you would find some satisfaction out playing Cutthroats: Terror on the high seas.

The game basically is pretty much like pirates but with the bonus of late 90's graphics and multimedia sounds which were nonexistant back in 1987 and you were at the mercy of the sounds of a 8086 pc speaker. You select a certain time period which can range from 1620 to 1700, each time period with its own brief description on what the hell was going on at that particular time both in Europe and in the Caribbean in terms of politics, economy and privateering and piracy.

You start with a small crew, an able seagoing small vessel, and just enough money to buy some food or other commodity. Crew is formed by ranks of sailors, gunners and marines, these last men which can serve as boarding and raiding parties for assaulting towns. You also need to hire a certain number of officers which have different abilities such as boarding, leadership, sailing, marksmanship, cannon, etc.

It would be unfair to say that "Cutthroats" has a more "pirate" feel than "Pirates!" but there are some things in the game well placed that really make you feel the pirate sense like for example the linguo from the crew, the sounds, your able sailing master which can always give proper advice at the correct time, your crew needs "rum" to fuel their morale as well as a balanced diet of standard ship food ("ship biscuits"), livestock and fruits which all take space from your ship's hold. Also when you are raiding or capturing a town, sometimes the inhabitants will try to offer you terms of surrender, and after that you have some wicked options such as different kind of methods for torturing the governor, killing all the soldiers, killing all civilians, or just wipe out the whole town...and that's when you really become infamous. You'll have every pirate hunter after you!.

What i like the most about the game is the navigation system. It really is innovative since you get a "Crow's nest view" top down view which gives you a sight of nearby land and ships, and you get the map fast travel, and the battle view travel each one suited with particular options.

The game goes on and on, you get missions from governors, appointment letters, recommendation letters, land titles, several other privileges, periodically estipends from the colony system, etc.

At the end you can retire and try to match up the hall of fame of the most famous Pirates of the Caribbean...

Every Pirate and 17th and 18th century naval enthusiast should take a look at this game...

It's a shame that Sid Meier's Pirates 2004 remake version doesn't even match up to Cutthroats! in terms of historical feel of the period...