automator
King
One of the first games I ever played on my family's first PC was Pirates! on an old 386 machine. I was most proud of that computer's dual 5.25" disk drives and excellent dot matrix printer.
Pirates! had me at hello. As time passed, from sixth grade through the middle of high school, I worked my way up to swashbuckler, collecting land, titles, gold and family members. I loved taking fully loaded war galleons with an understaffed pinnace, and raiding Cartegena with fewer than four dozen rouges. I drew maps of the Caribbean on my school folders and would spend entire rainy weekends cruising up and down the Spanish main.
Then the mid-'90s hit and the family computer was replaced with one of those fancy ones with a CD drive and a screen that displayed more than four colors. No Pirates! for that computer. Years passed until finally I discovered emulation and and copy of the NES version of Pirates! That kept me happy for a while. But I couldn't find a copy of Pirates! Gold with which to step up my game. That's when I heard of a new Pirates!
I didn't buy it right away. I bought it this weekend. So that's what, two years? I'm glad I waited. Had I bought it earlier, I'm pretty sure my computer wouldn't have been able to handle it. In all, it was a worthy wait, one that allowed me time to become fully addicted to that other crack of the computer world, Civ3 and CivIV.
I still haven't played a full game, so I suppose these are still first impressions. It's pretty. Really pretty. The ocean ripples, and from the behind-the-ship perspective, land rises from the horizon through the fog. Cities and settlements give visual clues to their size and condition and you can spot an easy ship to take by ratty sails and smoking hulls. The personalities of the new world show their emotions through facial and bodily gestures.
Compared with my memories of Pirates!, this game makes sailing a cakewalk. Storms no longer take immediate control over your ship to carry it half a month off course. Turning is smooth and even, with sweet spots in the wind being shown by snapping sails and swinging booms. No longer is sailing into the wind a pain of tacking into the wind, unsure of whether you're even moving, but I still wish there were a "fast-forward" button for long ocean voyages. Sword fighting is still pretty much the same. Defense against high, mid and low attacks, and a high, mid and low attack. Like sailing, gunnery is easier; you fire, then can see how fast your crew is reloading so you can fire again.
Those years between the first release, the refresher of the gold edition and this game were nicely devoted to increasing the scope of the game. Well, not the scope, as it's still sailing around attacking ships and then swordfighting, but the depth has changed. More ships! Ship upgrades! (That's right, if you've ever wanted to cram a ton of men into a pinnace, now's the time to do it!) Better information from the bartenders and more interaction at the governor's house round it out. Then there are the missions. Instead of simply delivering letters and hunting down evil Spaniards, you act as an escort or join other pirates in raids. Depending on how you used to fight land battles, you may not be happy. No longer is a land battle all about getting quickly into a forest, hiding a group of gunners at the edge and drawing the town's garrison towards your hidden men with another group. Your group gets divided and the game changes to a turn-based strategy game. Shuffle your tiles around and make for the gate! It actually makes the land-based attacks interesting.
As I said before, I'm glad I waited. No way could my computer a year ago handle Pirates! Even now, with a 2.7GHz P4, 1GB RAM and a 256MB Radeon 9250 card, I get the stutters during sword fights on a burning ship.
Like others who've played this, I'll eventually tire of it. Already I've grown tired of the sword battles. But the nostalgic value alone will keep this game on screen for a few more months, easily worth the purchase price.
Pirates! had me at hello. As time passed, from sixth grade through the middle of high school, I worked my way up to swashbuckler, collecting land, titles, gold and family members. I loved taking fully loaded war galleons with an understaffed pinnace, and raiding Cartegena with fewer than four dozen rouges. I drew maps of the Caribbean on my school folders and would spend entire rainy weekends cruising up and down the Spanish main.
Then the mid-'90s hit and the family computer was replaced with one of those fancy ones with a CD drive and a screen that displayed more than four colors. No Pirates! for that computer. Years passed until finally I discovered emulation and and copy of the NES version of Pirates! That kept me happy for a while. But I couldn't find a copy of Pirates! Gold with which to step up my game. That's when I heard of a new Pirates!
I didn't buy it right away. I bought it this weekend. So that's what, two years? I'm glad I waited. Had I bought it earlier, I'm pretty sure my computer wouldn't have been able to handle it. In all, it was a worthy wait, one that allowed me time to become fully addicted to that other crack of the computer world, Civ3 and CivIV.
I still haven't played a full game, so I suppose these are still first impressions. It's pretty. Really pretty. The ocean ripples, and from the behind-the-ship perspective, land rises from the horizon through the fog. Cities and settlements give visual clues to their size and condition and you can spot an easy ship to take by ratty sails and smoking hulls. The personalities of the new world show their emotions through facial and bodily gestures.
Compared with my memories of Pirates!, this game makes sailing a cakewalk. Storms no longer take immediate control over your ship to carry it half a month off course. Turning is smooth and even, with sweet spots in the wind being shown by snapping sails and swinging booms. No longer is sailing into the wind a pain of tacking into the wind, unsure of whether you're even moving, but I still wish there were a "fast-forward" button for long ocean voyages. Sword fighting is still pretty much the same. Defense against high, mid and low attacks, and a high, mid and low attack. Like sailing, gunnery is easier; you fire, then can see how fast your crew is reloading so you can fire again.
Those years between the first release, the refresher of the gold edition and this game were nicely devoted to increasing the scope of the game. Well, not the scope, as it's still sailing around attacking ships and then swordfighting, but the depth has changed. More ships! Ship upgrades! (That's right, if you've ever wanted to cram a ton of men into a pinnace, now's the time to do it!) Better information from the bartenders and more interaction at the governor's house round it out. Then there are the missions. Instead of simply delivering letters and hunting down evil Spaniards, you act as an escort or join other pirates in raids. Depending on how you used to fight land battles, you may not be happy. No longer is a land battle all about getting quickly into a forest, hiding a group of gunners at the edge and drawing the town's garrison towards your hidden men with another group. Your group gets divided and the game changes to a turn-based strategy game. Shuffle your tiles around and make for the gate! It actually makes the land-based attacks interesting.
As I said before, I'm glad I waited. No way could my computer a year ago handle Pirates! Even now, with a 2.7GHz P4, 1GB RAM and a 256MB Radeon 9250 card, I get the stutters during sword fights on a burning ship.
Like others who've played this, I'll eventually tire of it. Already I've grown tired of the sword battles. But the nostalgic value alone will keep this game on screen for a few more months, easily worth the purchase price.
