Sid Meier's Pirates!: Live the Life

Moby ID: 15645
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Description official descriptions

Sid Meier returns to his roots with this remake of Sid Meier's Pirates!, his 1987 game about sailing the high seas in search of treasure. As in the original, you will plunder cities, sink enemy ships, and more. A plethora of different styles of gameplay will have you sneaking out of prison, dancing with the governor's daughter, engaging in real-time strategic combat, and a slew of others.

Sid Meier's Pirates! features a new 3D engine, but its style of stringing several minigames together to make a congruent game remains true to the original.

Spellings

  • 大海盜 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

328 People (304 developers, 24 thanks) · View all

Designer/Programmer
Producer
Associate Producer
Executive Producer
CEO of Firaxis Games
Lead Programmer
Programmers
Tools Group Manager
Director of Technology
Lead Artists
Lead Animator
Animators
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Lead Character Modeler
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 67 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 106 ratings with 4 reviews)

SET FULL SAIL!!

The Good
The atmosphere is excellent. You'll really believe you are sailing down the Spanish Main in your ship, rather than just sitting at home in front of your computer. The sound is excellent, from "ARRR" and the boom of cannons to a sea shanty etc.The graphics are also top notch, with richly textured models and realistic particle effects. The game is also full of replay value, with several difficulty levels, several eras, tons of ship types, artifacts, quests etc. for you to take on once you begin the game. The atmosphere also is excellent, with the classic "swashbuckler" theme such as Monkey Island, rather than a more serious theme.



The Bad
Unfortunately, while the models and textures are good, they are re-used and re-used constantly. The English commander you fight will look the same the next English ship you board etc. The governor's daughters are also a disappointment. Although an improvement from the original, they lack depth. The ladies are rated on attractiveness with three levels, plain, attractive, and beautiful.

Problem is, each level from each nationality is almost always the same. The "plain" women are the same except for skin tone, the "attractive" women look the same except for different skin tone etc. Also, the romance is, while better than the original, lame. According to this game, women love a good dancer and riches and a rank. That's it. It would be more interesting to see perhaps individual personality traits for each woman etc.

Also, although the other game had you believe the sea was crawling with pirates, in this game, there are only 9 other pirates that are named. These guys are incredibly lame!! They are easy to take down, even the "most feared" pirate, and they barely seem to do anything. You begin the game with ridiculously powerful skills. A system where you would gradually get better at pirate stuff would have bee better.

The Bottom Line
Except for some minor problems, a great game!!

Windows · by James Kirk (150) · 2005

Excellent remake of a memorable classic

The Good
The addictive gameplay of the original 80's classic remains intact. In my opinion that's the most important thing that needs to be said about this remake. The general premise, the selectable nations, the layout of the cities, the travelling on the map of the Caribbean, the separate ship-to-ship combat, the dueling, capturing, sinking and plundering, the pirate "feeling" ... it's all there. And more. Unlike with some other remakes, everything that was added to the original concept really fits in. Such as having to actually dance with the gouvernor's daughters in order to enamour them, or being forced to literally sneak into a fortified town bearing the flag of an opposing nation, the Aztec villages and war canoes, the small, unfortified settlements, the abbeys, the pirate hideouts, the unique items, ... nothing feels off, nothing breaks the fun. My biggest quirk with the original Pirates! was the lack of variety when it came to ships. And this issue has sure been addressed. Now, there are TONS of new ship types, though most of them are essentially variants, such as the Sloop of War or the Royal Galleon. Still, there's nothing like capturing one of the rare "Ship of the Line"'s and making the whole Caribbean tremble with fear by utilizing the 48gun-400crew-but-still-lightning-fast monster for plundering. And it almost feels like they really tremble. Everything feels "alive". Treasure ships are frequently escorted, forcing you to deal with two enemies in a single battle. Promotions have actual effects, such as getting ship repairs for free. The nations wage war on each other (or declare peace), regardless what you do, causing cities to switch allegiance without your interference. If you cause too much trouble to any nation, they'll put a price on your head. Pirate hunters will then depart cities to hunt you down once you are sighted attacking yet another hapless merchant vessel ... and a lot of more things that can't ALL be mentioned here. ;) One final note: this game was shipped with a very low amount of bugs, which cannot be said about every game released these days. In fact, after sailing the seas for several decades, I have yet to run into one severe enough for me to even notice it. Finally a game with good QA once again.

The Bad
The ability to attack cities from seaside was scrapped, which isn't too good in my book. Also, in the original game, it felt like the whole Caribbean was crawling with pirates, maybe some remember how the copy protection itself required the player to successfully identify one out of the plentiful selection of pirate captains. Sadly, this is a thing of the past. Now there's the "Top 10 Pirates", which includes yourselves, resulting in a mere nine other "named" pirates travelling the seas - and that's it. And besides the named ones, it can be pretty quiet out there - but this depends on the difficulty setting and era, too. Furthermore, players of the original Pirates! will most likely have strong memories of trips to the central-american coast, and the lengthy, unpleasant way back to the Windward Islands. These trips are still a chore. While this may reflect the actual weather conditions in this part of the world, it's still a bit unnerving. Also, if you make such trip to acquire some treasure of a pirate "colleague" ... the treasure hunts can be somewhat unrewarding. After paying 600 gold for the map itself and travel a vast distance to get to the loot, it ain't funny finding a mere 8000 gold and adding them to your existing 100 grand. And treasures can be even smaller than that.

The Bottom Line
Don't be fooled by the rather lengthy complaint-paragraph up there. I was merely nitpicking. :P This is a great game. It manages to bring the things that made it fun to play into the new millennium, which is exactly what a remake should do, but also the thing that most fail to achieve. Kudos to Sid Meier for creating yet another gaming landmark. Harr!

Windows · by Cadorna (219) · 2004

Memorable, addictive, fun.. I love it

The Good
Since I never knew what Sid Meier's games were like, I didn't know what to expect from this. What i received, was an experience that I had never seen before!

This has to be one of the most original games I have ever played; because it gives you a full simulation in what a pirate's life is like. It also puts in elements that you wouldn't even think of when making a game about the sea and yet, Sid Meier pulls it off pretty well.

Now the plot of the game is quite simple; you(as a young boy), end up with your family getting kidnapped by the horrible Marquis de la montalban. You manage to escape and ever since, you wish to defeat him and bring your family back. 10 years later, the new you starts the great journey on your own.

The game offers great graphics, wonderful music and several enjoyable mini-games that mostly involve the basics of being a pirate. You get to plunder ships and villages, defeat famous pirate mercenaries(including Blackbeard) and you also get to steal the hearts of the governors' daughters in the many different villages. The PERFECT simulation.

The Bad
What I didn't like was the fact that this game is extremely repetitive! The same characters say the same things and sometimes, do the same things too. For example, you have to keep on attacking the same man named Baron Raymondo just in order to get more information where your family members are.

The game can also be really unfair on you; at one point i was fighting against another ship with the same the same size and i was fighting with 58 people in my crew. When i finally started to hijack the ship, only of my crew decided to fight. Undoubtedly, i lost in this bit.

There thankfully isn't much else to complain about the game.

The Bottom Line
Sid Meier's Pirates is a wonderful title that you should consider getting. Not only is it worth your money, it is also worth your precious time as well.

A lot of games should be made like this, because this one in particular, has qualities in which i had never seen before. And that is why this game is one of my favourites!

Windows · by Arejarn (7353) · 2009

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

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Title vedder (70685) Apr 4, 2015

Trivia

Sound

Some sound-effects/video in Sid Meier's Pirates were re-used from previous Civilization games., One example includes when your character swings on a rope aboard a ship. The yell he makes is actually the yell an Archer makes in Civ III when he gets promoted. Another example is one of the ballroom dancing pieces that's played. It happens to also be a track used in Civilization III: Conquests.

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2005 - #2 Game of the Year
  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2005 (Issue #249) – Arcade Classic of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2004 – #10 PC Game of the Year
    • 2004 - Old Skool Award (PC)

Information also contributed by PCGamer77

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Zack Green.

Xbox One added by Plok. Xbox 360 added by karttu. iPhone added by Sciere. Wii, Windows Phone added by Kabushi. iPad added by Pirou Julien. Xbox added by DGackey. Macintosh added by Zeppin.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Jeanne, Rambutaan, Corn Popper, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added November 25, 2004. Last modified March 15, 2024.