Sid Meier's Pirates! review

Sid Meier's Pirates! on Xbox is a game I've been looking forward to for quite a while. I adore the PC version and have been eager to see how the gameplay has translated onto the console. Under the skin of the cartoon-like graphics Pirates! is s surprisingly deep experience, especially on the tougher skill levels.

The story begins when a family is double-crossed and loses their fortune, one young son escapes and goes to seek his fortune in the West Indies. But the captain of the ship is a brutal taskmaster and a justified mutiny ensues leaving the lad in charge of a small ship and crew.

Thus begins your adventure on the high seas, and one that's surprisingly open-ended for a console game. In these days of constricting linear plots, the first thing that's welcome is the open gameplay. Should you choose to track down your family, or go on quests to defeat evil pirates, that's up to you. But if you're a salty sea-dog that just wants to sail the Caribbean sea, running like smoke and oakum from pirate hunters and firing broadsides into defenceless West Indiamen, then you can.

Weight anchor

The main gameplay screen shows the vessel you're using as your flagship and any vessels you've captured. You'll be able to see other vessels in your area and the local towns and villages. It's an attractive, nicely detailed way of showing your voyage though it's not quite on a par with the PC version, for example the ships are larger on this map than they appeared in the other version, making it easy to run aground or land at a town when you merely wanted to sail past.

However the interface is much cleaner now, the wind gauge being less gargantuan. The way targets are selection has changed to, with your choice of entering battle mode then allowing your to change targets with the triggers. It's here on this screen that it's worth developing a strategy before attacking boats - you'll want to get what is called the weather gauge. This is having the wind behind you, which gives you the choice on how to engage the target and leaves your opposition having to beat into the wind if they wish to close.

Run out the guns

The highlight of the game for me is the battle screen. Once you've selected a target, or been attacked yourself, the action zooms into your patch of sea and battle commences. The action is not merely a case of circling each other and opening fire, the hard difficulty levels really require and understanding of how to use the wind and how this affects different ships, whether fore-and-after or square rigged sails. There's a real sense of accomplishment in managing to use the wind to cross your enemies stern and rake him with close-range cannon fire.

The graphics are detailed here, and you'll see some great damage affects as your round shot pounds into the hull of your enemy. There's real sinister pleasure to be had lying yardarm to yardarm with another vessel, blasting away at each other. Your ship's manoeuvrability and cannon reload times are heavily dependent on size of crew, which goes for your enemy too, so you may choose to use grape shot to whittle down his crew rather than batter his hull. There's also the choice of chain shot, which is used for attacking the sails and rigging and destroying the enemy's ability to manoeuvre.

The battle sequences are some of the most fun I've had in a game for a long time, though they are not without problems. There's less information than the PC game and I would have liked to see the speed of the ships displayed. The lower TV resolution also brings the problem of lack of detail when the camera zooms out, often when the combatants are some distance apart.

Mini game, mini fun

There are many sub-games included in Pirates! for a variety of purposes. When you board an enemy vessel, or you are boarded yourself, it's time to face off against the captain. It's time for some scripted sword fighting, which can be a little dull once you've done it a few tens of times. This is enlivened by a new system of swashbuckling action when boarding a ship with a vastly bigger crew than your own.

In this situation it's time for button combos to complete feats of daring do, such as running down a sail using a knife, or catching an enemy sword. Completing the button combos within a set time evens up the crews a little meaning you may have the time to defeat the enemy captain.

There are also other mini games that are played when dancing with a governor's daughter to earn helpful gifts or information, sneaking into an enemy town or a turn-based battle when attacking an enemy town. While the dancing game is simplified from the PC version and feels a little pointless at times, the sneaking has been made more interesting by moving the camera from an overhead view to a close third person one. The turn based land battles remain fun, and in many ways reminded me of the old Infogrames game North vs South.

Details details

I'm very impressed with the transfer of depth (if you'll pardon the pun) of the PC game into this console version. All too often these days we have to play games that have their intelligence removed when translated from the PC to console. There's real strategic depth in this game on the higher skill levels, making for some exciting sea battles, especially when you're involved in a chase.

The interface does seem a little clunky compared to the PC version, with the post-battle screens being the worst example of this. Strangely the plunder and merchant screens are now lacking the sale and plunder of cannons. This means, as far as I was able to tell, there's no way to increase the number of cannons on your ship. It's a strange decision and I wonder why this was made. However it does add some more depth - making you choose your flagship more carefully.

There are also some issues of stuttering on the battle map, but I'm going to be fair to the game here and say my Xbox is aging somewhat, and I think my drive may be to blame rather than the game itself.

Sailing into the sunset

Pirates! is a game I've really fallen in love with. I adore the open-ended gameplay and the ability to just explore and get into the occasional scrap - it shows that too many of today's games are too linear, too bound up in a story. Yes there's a story here, but you don't have to take part.

There's plenty of life in the game, there are several difficulty levels and options on starting during different periods of history - from the bustling days of colonisation and the early periods with sparse shipping. You can even choose to leave your own nation's shipping alone and act more like a privateer with a letter of marque, attacking king and country's enemies.

The historical period is beautifully realised, and the included onscreen encyclopaedia is great reading. If you have an interest in this period, pirates, the age of sail - you'll find lots to enjoy, especially if you're a fan of the works of Patrick O'Brian or Alexander Kent. For arcade gameplay fans there's plenty too, with the lower difficulty levels offering a fun seaborne shoot'em up. The game isn't perfect, but with its open-ended gameplay and a new fun multiplayer mode I can highly recommend Sid Meier's Pirates!