This game provides days of entertainment with so much to do.
For those who have a bit of pirate in 'em, good old Sid Meier's got you covered. With a title that has Sid's name right on the box, you know your getting the ultimate in simulated experience. This time he takes you back to the late 1600's when pirating ravaged the Caribbean and the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish nations are fighting for control of it all. Sid's clever meld of mini-game action and strategic conquest push Sid Meier's Pirates! to the level you would expect coming from the father of the sim genre.
The game starts out with a noble family awaiting a large amount of money to pay off the Evil Marquis. Unfortunately for them, there shipment of valuables does not arrive and the villain takes the family away save for a small boy who manages to escape. Years pass and the boy becomes of age to begin his search for his family and extract sweet, sweet revenge upon the Marquis. Through out the journey you will make allegiances to nations as it best serves and strike devastation upon others all the while picking up clues to the whereabouts of your family and the hideout of the villainous one. You will charm the daughters of governors, cross swords with the sea's most notorious pirates, hunt for buried treasure, and just be an all around scallywag.
The fist thing that you will notice from the game is the block of mini-games embedded into the regular gameplay. You will become quite familiar with the little rock-paper-scissors mini-game for dueling rival captains, the button matching of the dancing mini-game, and the always-fun RTS-esc feel of the storm the town mini-game. Along with these you will find a mini-game for hunting treasure, and sneaking around a town. These break up the gameplay very nicely and provide a more expanded playing experience as apposed to your standard sim game. The game's main operations of events take place in your flagship upon the great blue sea. Here you will sail the many ports of the Caribbean sacking ships and collecting treasure. The game controls handle quite well and are extremely simplified for that pick-up and play appeal. In fact the entire game is pretty simplified and shouldn't prove to taxing to get into, provided you spend the time to get acquainted with it. The game really doesn't do well in the way of showing you what to do in the beginning and leaves you to figure it out for yourself. However, once you do become acquainted with the routine you may find it a bit repetitive. Even so, you can find hours slipping by as you play this game.
The game does fall a bit short in a few directions. First being its repetitive nature. Even though it is satisfying to shoot down a ship and sack it for treasure and goods, you fill find the dueling to be very tedious. The fact that it is so simple and short is the only thing that saves it from being a real drawback. You may also find it can get tiresome to have to chase down ship when it takes far too long to get from one side of the map to the other only to find your target has set sail once again. Another thing noteworthy is the AI ships lack realistic intelligence. They seem to get confused on what they are doing and end up just spinning in circles as you wail on them with your cannons. Though it doesn't happen that often it is noticed enough to be worth mentioning. As is their uncanny ability to float through land, an ability that your own ships seem to lack. Strange. Another point of interest is Sid's addition of a time limit. You only have a certain amount of time to play this game before your character is forced to retire from pirating. This is organized into a health and age system. Once your character reaches a certain age, his health will begin to deteriorate. As this happens certain things will become harder or even not possible to do in the game forcing you to "retire" from pirating and ending your game. The lifespan appears to be several hours, which proves to be more then enough time to rescue the imprisoned family and extract revenge. Still though it is strange that you would have an ending in a genre that is mainly characterized by its open-ended ness.
Sid Meier's Pirates! allows you to recreate any Jack Sparrow fantasy that you might have all the while doing it in a portable manner. It is very "on the go" friendly though you may find yourself spending more time then you thought with its addictive nature. It's really not a bad looking game for a PSP title, and the little touches and mini-games make the game really impressive. The inclusion of a time limit of sorts does take away from the real experience and might deter you from playing through it again to try and finish what you might not have had time to do before. That along with the few other bugs included in the game really don't hinder your gaming enjoyment too much though and all in all this game is a good bit of fun. An "excellent" addition to your PSP collection and a 7 out of 10 from
The game starts out with a noble family awaiting a large amount of money to pay off the Evil Marquis. Unfortunately for them, there shipment of valuables does not arrive and the villain takes the family away save for a small boy who manages to escape. Years pass and the boy becomes of age to begin his search for his family and extract sweet, sweet revenge upon the Marquis. Through out the journey you will make allegiances to nations as it best serves and strike devastation upon others all the while picking up clues to the whereabouts of your family and the hideout of the villainous one. You will charm the daughters of governors, cross swords with the sea's most notorious pirates, hunt for buried treasure, and just be an all around scallywag.
The fist thing that you will notice from the game is the block of mini-games embedded into the regular gameplay. You will become quite familiar with the little rock-paper-scissors mini-game for dueling rival captains, the button matching of the dancing mini-game, and the always-fun RTS-esc feel of the storm the town mini-game. Along with these you will find a mini-game for hunting treasure, and sneaking around a town. These break up the gameplay very nicely and provide a more expanded playing experience as apposed to your standard sim game. The game's main operations of events take place in your flagship upon the great blue sea. Here you will sail the many ports of the Caribbean sacking ships and collecting treasure. The game controls handle quite well and are extremely simplified for that pick-up and play appeal. In fact the entire game is pretty simplified and shouldn't prove to taxing to get into, provided you spend the time to get acquainted with it. The game really doesn't do well in the way of showing you what to do in the beginning and leaves you to figure it out for yourself. However, once you do become acquainted with the routine you may find it a bit repetitive. Even so, you can find hours slipping by as you play this game.
The game does fall a bit short in a few directions. First being its repetitive nature. Even though it is satisfying to shoot down a ship and sack it for treasure and goods, you fill find the dueling to be very tedious. The fact that it is so simple and short is the only thing that saves it from being a real drawback. You may also find it can get tiresome to have to chase down ship when it takes far too long to get from one side of the map to the other only to find your target has set sail once again. Another thing noteworthy is the AI ships lack realistic intelligence. They seem to get confused on what they are doing and end up just spinning in circles as you wail on them with your cannons. Though it doesn't happen that often it is noticed enough to be worth mentioning. As is their uncanny ability to float through land, an ability that your own ships seem to lack. Strange. Another point of interest is Sid's addition of a time limit. You only have a certain amount of time to play this game before your character is forced to retire from pirating. This is organized into a health and age system. Once your character reaches a certain age, his health will begin to deteriorate. As this happens certain things will become harder or even not possible to do in the game forcing you to "retire" from pirating and ending your game. The lifespan appears to be several hours, which proves to be more then enough time to rescue the imprisoned family and extract revenge. Still though it is strange that you would have an ending in a genre that is mainly characterized by its open-ended ness.
Sid Meier's Pirates! allows you to recreate any Jack Sparrow fantasy that you might have all the while doing it in a portable manner. It is very "on the go" friendly though you may find yourself spending more time then you thought with its addictive nature. It's really not a bad looking game for a PSP title, and the little touches and mini-games make the game really impressive. The inclusion of a time limit of sorts does take away from the real experience and might deter you from playing through it again to try and finish what you might not have had time to do before. That along with the few other bugs included in the game really don't hinder your gaming enjoyment too much though and all in all this game is a good bit of fun. An "excellent" addition to your PSP collection and a 7 out of 10 from