Video Game-A-Day #22: Sid Meier's Pirates! (Various Consoles, PC)

[bratwurst]

ARRRGH MATEY!!! I'm going to start off my week here with a small run through of some of my favorite Sid Meier games.

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Wikipedia Entry for Pirates! (covering the 1987 original release)

Pirates! is a single-player game. The player does not in fact take on the role of a pirate at the start of the game, but rather that of a privateer, in the service of Spain, Holland, England, or France (though his loyalties may change over the course of the game and he may turn to piracy at any time). Gameplay is open-ended; the player may choose to go after enemy shipping or towns, or hunt pirates, or seek buried treasure or long-lost family members, or even avoid violence altogether and seek to increase his wealth through trade. The game also has no pre-determined end, although as time goes on, it becomes more difficult to recruit men for your crew. The game ends when the player retires, at which point he is given a position in his future life, from beggar to King's Adviser, based on his wealth, land, rank, marital status, and other accomplishments.

The game tests a wide range of skills: hand-eye coordination during the fencing sections, tactical ability during the land and sea combat phases, and strategic thinking, for everything from choosing a wife to deciding when to divvy up the plunder. Moreover, each game can take a different course, as various events early in the game can greatly affect future strategic options. Also, the game is, by computer game standards, fairly educational. Reading about naval tactics in the age of sail is one thing, but when in the course of the game a player may try to beat up wind in a frigate in order to run down a pinnace that's less than half his size, but was fortunate enough to have the weather gage, this will give the player an appreciation unobtainable from books.

Pirates! was a groundbreaking game in its era. Although other open-ended games had already been released (such as Elite in 1984), the style of player-directed game-play in Pirates! lead it to be the spiritual predecessor of countless others since, both by Sid Meier himself (Civilization, Railroad Tycoon) and many others, notably Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims). Not surprisingly, Pirates! won many awards at the time of its release, being named game of the year in its genre by at least three gaming magazines, and has continued to earn accolades ever since, having been voted one of the top 20 games of all time by Computer Gaming World Magazine. Pirates! won two Origins Awards, Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1987 and Best Screen Graphics in a Home Computer Game of 1987.

I remember renting the original Pirates! for NES one weekend at Blockbuster and being instantly hooked. Like most of Sid Meier's games, Pirates! spans multiple genres: action, role playing, adventure, real time strategy, all in one game. It was one of the rare NES games that were so open ended and had enough depth to give hours of replayability. You could start a new game and it would never be the same as the last, unlike most Nintendo games with scripted levels. You could sail around attacking towns, ships, hunting other pirates, choose a country to fight for and others against, or just sail from town to town trading commodities. The whole thing was up to you! Sail the spanish main and find the silver train or treasure fleet, or dig up buried treasure, find your lost relatives... One of the great things about this game is that it came with a map of the Caribbean Sea with the real towns during the 17th century, and you could pick wherever you wanted to go and sail there.

This game had a huge fan base, enough that when copies of the PC and console games weren't available in store anymore, they would sell for premium prices on sites like ebay. What other games do you think would sell for $50+ used when they were 7 years old?

The game has gone through 2 major revisions. The original Pirates! was released in 1987 for a lot of different platforms, amiga, mac, pc, NES, etc. Pirates! Gold was released in the early 90's for Sega Genesis and PC, maybe on Super Nintendo, I'm not sure. In 2004 the game was again redone, with a 3d engine and much updated graphics for PC and XBOX.

Here are some screenshots:

Pirates! (NES version of the 1987 original)

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Pirates! Gold (PC version, 1993)

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Sid Meier's Pirates! (PC version, 2004)

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[abomb]

Countdown to D-Dogg's post in 3...2...

 

[Chaplin]

This was one of my favorite games as a kid--I ran the PC version back in the late 80s. The newest versions of it are pretty solid.

 

[dogpoo32]

I've got the PC version. Was fun for like 2 days. Then I went back to playing WOW.

 

[Ryanwb]

I don't remember the gay pirates holding hands

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[D-Dogg]

I played the crap out of this new version on Xbox a while back. Awesome, awesome game.

I loved it.

 

[jenna2891]

Countdown to D-Dogg's post in 3...2...

were you counting down days?

 

[abomb]

were you counting down days?

Ha minutes, but he took a little asfn vacation for a day and messed up my count.

When he had this game, it was on his 60" TV 24 hours a day for days and days.

A-Bomb