Sid Meier's Pirates!: Live the Life

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!