Addictive collection of mini games all tied together nicely.
In Sid Meier’s Pirates! you play as a young pirate, whose family has been taken into captivity all over the Caribbean region. It’s up to you to find your relatives and get revenge to the evil Spanish nobleman who has done you wrong. But this is just the basic premise, because in practice you can do almost anything you want with your life.
Graphics are bright and happy making the atmosphere almost a fairytale feeling rather than harsh and cruel life of a blood thirsty pirate. Unfortunately there are some serious frame rate issues now and then and the characters’ movements are all horribly recycled all throughout the adventure. And to make things worse there are only a handful of different character models in use.
Sounds are basic stuff fitting the action which is nice, but the story itself is told through text and not voice acting. At this point it’s almost ancient history and takes some of the fun out of the story. And just like the character movements the musical score is also very heavily recycled.
Sid Meier’s Pirates! is basically a collection of different mini games and all the time there is something new to find and explore. This open ended and addictive gameplay is what makes Sid Meier’s Pirates! really shine. You are always moving forward in your career as a pirate and actually there is not a way to lose this game. In time your character grows old and at some point it is time to retire and see how well you did. Next thing to do is to start a new game, play a little differently and doing so results a whole different outcome of the game. I played the game two times and it took about 20 hours to make it the whole way through.
If you can look past some frame rate problems, repetitive gameplay and character models, then you realize that there is just one word that gives the best description of Sid Meier’s Pirates!: fun.