10/06 Update: Since we no longer write for the Edmond Sun, this section is temporarily housing our podcast links for our iTunes feed. All of the columns are in the archives menu if you feel like exploring. These columns (as well as the 'releases') come from weekly content that we write for the Edmond Sun, out of Edmond, OK (though we live in Chicago). This page contains the archives for said column, many of which are in their pre-published, unedited state. Some titles and editing by Brendan Sinclair. Column Archives: Sid Meier's Pirates!: Yar or Nar?Tuesday, August 02, 2005 It's been a while since I've sailed these seas. I was lucky enough to experience the original Pirates! starting in 1987, in all of it's dubloon-hoading, cannonball-lobbing, ocean-terrorizing glory. It was the first opened-ended game I had ever experienced - being a pirate was just icing on the cake. I'd like to be able to say that this is a truly deserved follow-up (an Xbox port of last year's popular PC game), and it certainly is in some regards; it just falls a bit short of capturing the truly adventurous spirit of the original. Let's start at the beginning - your family was captured by a band of murderous pirates, their bourgeois lives torn asunder. You managed to escape in the chaos, and ten years later you're out for revenge. Well, at least your character is. Seeing as it's a lot easier to just get rich and lead a mighty convoy of battleships than find your family, you might not ever get around to fulfilling the story objectives. And that's fine. The beauty of the game comes in the freedom of the gameplay. In each port, you're given the option to see the governor, visit the tavern, trade with the town merchant, or see the shipwright. The governor will give you escort missions, promote you if you've been killing their enemies, chide you if you've been terrorizing his people, and periodically offer up his daughter for dancing (which can lead to pregnancy, as we all know). You'll find plenty of useful information and missions to take on in the taverns, as well as rare items for sale and groups of local men willing to join your crew. The merchants all sell the same things, but at different prices, allowing for a very profitable stock market dynamic if you play your cards right. Finally, the shipwright will repair your ships, upgrade them, and buy them if given the chance. It should also be said that there are four ruling powers in the game - the English, Spanish, Dutch and French. You choose in the beginning whom your initial allegiances lie with, but you can do your best to appease all nations equally if you wish (or destroy them, obviously). The higher regard they hold you in, the friendlier their prices, people and governor's daughters will be towards you. So, with that said, what does the actual gameplay consist of? Well, besides navigating menus and conversation trees, mini-games. Lots of mini-games. Some are more entertaining and deeper than other, but they're all fairly simple (and usually intuitive). Attacking other ships involves a small ballet of cannon firing, dancing around one another until the angles are ripe for destruction. Go in close enough and you will board the ship and swordfight the captain using a half dozen offensive and defensive maneuvers. There's also rhythm-based ballroom dancing, third-person town-sneaking, slightly strategic land battles when invading a city, and a couple others of varying occurrence and interest. So between all of those games and dozens of quests to take on at any time, you would think that the life of a pirate never gets old, right? Well, not entirely. The main problem I found, especially in contrast to the original game, is that everything is too laid out for you. Within two and a half hours of playing the game I was the richest, most notorious pirate on the water, had three fully-upgraded ships packed with men and supplies, a wife, and even rescued two of my family members for kicks. Sure, I could continue to increase my fortune and gain favor with all nations, but once the mini-games, conversations and animations get old (and they definitely all do), there's not much left motivating you to keep at your various tasks. It also doesn't help that there are only two or three different cutscenes for each situation, making everything get stale much faster than it should. And while I haven't yet spoken about the visuals themselves, they're nothing special. The art design is a bit bland considering it's pirates they're working with (who are naturally badass to begin with), and the graphics are technically inferior to most other Xbox games. Having the framerate dip while you're ballroom dancing is ridiculous, and just one example of how sloppy some areas feel (on the other hand, the sound is great throughout, though it's a bit late for that). In the end, it's just too easy and deceptively simple. The original Pirates had you sailing up the coast for ages before you'd find a town, and you'd be lucky if there was a mission waiting for you there. If you didn't manage your supplies right, your men would leave and you might not make it to the next town. I feel like a grandfather telling the merits of walking three miles in the snow to get to school, but a little challenge can go a long way. You really have to be trying to find a mutiny on your hands in this one, and I was playing it on the third of five difficulty levels. I won't rag on the game too much though, as anyone new to the series will probably find a lot to love for a dozen hours or so. The game does everything in it's power to make things user-friendly, and I'm sure newcomers will appreciate it. Don't get me wrong - I'm really happy that games like this still have an audience and can find fans in an ocean of gangsta games and first-person shooters; I just think that an old sea dog like me is just looking for a little bit more. - Nick |
