Sunday Thoughts: Pirates!
Shush, I'm pillaging.
Published: 14:00, 24/07/2011 by Peter [Colossalblue].
7This week marked the fourth occasion I’ve bought Sid Meier’s Pirates! It became available on iPad (although not the smaller-screen iOS devices) on Thursday and I paid my £2.49 as soon as it showed up in my repeated searching.
Sea battles can be surprisingly tense on higher difficulty levels.
Oh, and then I bought it again via iTunes and gifted it to a friend. So that’s technically five times.
I should also admit that after having bought the game I’ve spent countless hours playing, in different incarnations and on different machines, I then stayed awake until 5AM on Friday morning playing it.
You could say I was a bit of a fan.
I’m not sure what it is about Pirates! that I fell so hopelessly head over heels in love with all those years ago but if I had to guess I would say it was the open nature of the game. I first experienced it when the height of my in-game choices consisted of making Sonic run left for the secret collectible. Pirates! gave me a decent-sized area of the globe to sail around at will.
I know that the sword fights and the remake’s dancing mini game are a little less than exciting but the exploration, turn based land battles and real time sea battles were all more than enough to cement this game’s place in my heart. The terrain plays a significant role in land battles and the wind plays just as big a part in sea battles. At the time, it was amazing and even today I love it.
Trading also played a big part in the game. In fact, if you wanted to ignore the unenforced main quest to find your betrayed family, you could just spend your time in the game world travelling between ports, becoming wealthy by buying low and selling high.
Part of the Pirates! world, open seas ringed with ripened settlements.
I’m struck by how much time I must have spent playing this game over the years, as well as how much more time I seem destined to spend buying it on various platforms and playing it long into the night. I can’t think of a game in this generation of consoles that holds that power over me. Perhaps it’s just the intoxicating whiff of nostalgia that makes me keen to get back to my Governor’s Letter of Marque and my life of privateering on the high seas but even so, I find it difficult to imagine a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 game having that seemingly timeless pull.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it is all a case of perspective and timing. What are your treasured gaming moments that you continue to revisit and do you think there will be any that you’ll take with you from this generation?
Just as I was adding images to this article, I remembered that I also bought the game on PSP. So that’s six times.
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24/07/2011 at 14:01
Member since: Aug 2009
Why are pirates as a theme even considered cool? I don’t get it.
24/07/2011 at 14:07
Member since: Dec 2009
Maybe it’s because they Arr..
24/07/2011 at 14:20
Member since: Aug 2010
haha! he just walked right into that one!
nice one Bonyman=)
24/07/2011 at 14:05
Member since: Nov 2009
“…It must be love, love, love do-do do-do” :P
24/07/2011 at 14:05
Member since: Nov 2008
From this generation I cant think of a game that i will carry with me to the next but my love for Final Fantasy still runs strong and i keep going back to them time and time again.
24/07/2011 at 14:20
Member since: Jul 2009
for me it is COD4. Got me into FPS’s. Still love it today apart from the fact I cant really play it because its been hacked to shit! …….doh!
24/07/2011 at 20:17
Member since: Apr 2009
Bioshock, Mirror’s Edge and Uncharted for me.
24/07/2011 at 21:41
Member since: Jul 2009
Aye!
24/07/2011 at 14:10
Member since: Jul 2009
Not a big fan of Strategy games etc. I love pirates and that though. Love the Monkey Island games. Wheneve I think Pirate, i think of those games.
24/07/2011 at 14:27
Member since: Oct 2010
How appropriate, you fight like a cow.
24/07/2011 at 14:35
Member since: Jul 2009
I aint no dairy farmer!
24/07/2011 at 14:26
Member since: Oct 2010
Ohhhh this is awesome! I absolutely LOVE this game. I had a similar experience whereby it was one of the first times I felt truly free in a game. There’s nothing telling you what you explicitly MUST DO. A Pirates life for me!
24/07/2011 at 14:53
Member since: May 2009
i love sid meirs (however you spell it) Pirates on the PSP kept me occupied for a whole holiday when we were travelling otherwise i bloody hate pirates
24/07/2011 at 14:54
Member since: May 2009
Meiers * :P
24/07/2011 at 15:03
Member since: Feb 2011
It’s awesome that you’re doing this article now, I bought Pirates! in the Steam Summer Sale and have been pretty much addicted since. It’s completely brilliant, all except for that whore-mongering dancing mini game. I hope whoever thought of that gets scurvy.
Any chance of a sequel? Apparently at one point there were rumours one was going to be made but I haven’t found anything recent :(
I want more ship combat games, I was thinking of picking up East India Company but it’s reviews have been pretty mixed.
24/07/2011 at 15:21
Member since: Jan 2011
I got very excited when I glimpsed the headline for a Pirates! game (based on the books, which are awesome), but this is good enough ;)
24/07/2011 at 15:26
Member since: Aug 2008
I spent many an hour playing Pirates with my dad in the Amiga, we had a massiveblue binder full of printed out maps and other things I can’t remember.
Yarr, them were the days.
24/07/2011 at 20:38
Member since: Mar 2010
I think I still have the old xbox version lying about. I remember it being an interesting game, and commanding a small fleet attacking other ships was great fun.