Arrrrgh!! Avast, ye land lubber! And other pirate talk! Been waiting to get your pillage on? Well this game has more than enough fun, so you don’t even need to get loaded to the gunwalls! (Look it up)

All pirates want revenge for something right? Well in your case, another pirate kidnapped your family when you were younger. And now that you are old enough, you set out with a pirate ...]]>

Adventures on the high seas without the scurvy! But we can’t guarantee that.

Arrrrgh!! Avast, ye land lubber! And other pirate talk! Been waiting to get your pillage on? Well this game has more than enough fun, so you don’t even need to get loaded to the gunwalls! (Look it up)

All pirates want revenge for something right? Well in your case, another pirate kidnapped your family when you were younger. And now that you are old enough, you set out with a pirate crew and a ship of your own, courtesy of a mutiny against your old captain. As the captain of your new sloop, you have to keep your crew happy so they don’t mutiny against you as well and dump you on an island. How do you keep pirates happy? Pillaging of course!

Through the course of your life (yes you age in this game) you will have the opportunity to attack any vessel you encounter, duel the captain of an opposing vessel, attack settlements of opposing nations, battle rude fiancés to win the approval of governors’ daughters, and of course dance with them. But first, the battles!

Naval battles are fantastic. Depending on what ship you are sailing, how many guns you have, how many crew, the wind conditions, and your sailing skills, the sea battles can either be exciting, or they can have you setting your sails at full and hoping you can outrun whoever is chasing you. Three different types of cannon shot can be used to take out crew, sails and masts, or just plain pummel the other ship (or yours). If you are more at home with a rapier in your hand you can close in on them a quick as possible and initiate a battle with the captain while your crews battle it out. After the smoke has cleared and you are (hopefully) the victor, sometimes the opposing crew will ask to join yours. You can also take all the loot that was onboard the other ship as well as choosing to either keep or sink that ship. Land battles are turn based fights with different types of pirates at your control. The number of crew you have and the number of soldiers defending a town are really important factors in deciding if you should attack, try to sneak into the town, or just sail away and find another port.

Dancing is something entirely different, altogether. (Dancing is something entirely different). It’s sort of like that annoying beeping little disc with four colors and goes by the name Simon. She gives you directions about what to do by pointing with her hands right before you do it. So you have to sit there and pay attention to her hands (at least you aren’t staring at her chest), and as soon as she is pointing you have to press the correct button in time with the music. If you don’t, you trip and embarrass her, and she doesn’t like that very much. If you are really smooth and she likes the way you dance at the end of the song, she will let you kiss her hand or twirl her around and look down her dress! (Ooooh!) And then she will give you some information either about a criminal that needs to be brought to justice or about your family. If you impress a girl enough times you may even get to marry her!

The visuals in this game are great. Most computers will be able to make full use of their video card to show off the stunning 3D animations while sword fighting or dancing. The only thing that I find irritating about this whole game is that the video settings reset every time you exit the game. Audio quality is good, but there isn’t very much to listen to in the game. There is the background music as you sail around the Caribbean and when you enter ports, but there are no voice actors. Everyone seems to mumble or speak gibberish. The dancing obviously has music, but how hard is it to play a classical dancing melody without any effects?

But the gameplay itself is engaging enough to keep you coming back. As you get older your pirate gets slower and eventually you have to retire. Now the great thing is that every game is different. Your family, all the lost cities, the secret hiding places, they all move around from one game to the next so you never know where they will be. With several different eras to play in, the politics are different every time, as are the beginning conditions. With the option to attack anyone at any time, or to just be a trader and attack only pirates, there is no set way that the game ends. You could end up marooned on a desert island for the rest of your life, or you can retire a rich man with a beautiful wife and ten’s of thousand’s of acres of land. All things considered I give Pirates! 4 Treasure chests out of 5

Editor’s Note: one more “Hyargh matey” for good measure.