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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Perhaps it's a stretch to call this a RPG, so feel free to move this thread to AOT if that's more appropriate.
Anyway, anyone have some opinions on the game? My wife bought it for me last night, but I'm going to hold off until Xmas to open it up. Just wondering what I'm missing. I loved the original game and even bought "Pirates Gold" for the improved graphics and Windows compatibility...
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Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
Thu Dec 09, 2004 12:28 am |
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Amelia
City Guard
Joined: 18 Jun 2004
Posts: 141
Location: Ong's Hat, New Jersey |
It looks good and I'd like to get it. A great game to be remade as well. Sid Meier is probably one of the greatest game designers, arguably, ever.
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The real secret of magick is that the world is made of words. And that if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish. -Terence Mckenna |
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Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:35 am |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
I just read long review abou it and it surely looks very promising. I also doubt if we should call it RPG. But otherwise it should have great story, replayability, graphics and so on. |
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Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:10 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Well, we decided it was enough of a RPG to cover (Ok, we cheated a little) but it's been getting some great reviews. Looks like a fun time-waster.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:49 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
Well, I finished my first time through "Pirates".
I have not played the original game from the early 90's, so I had no special expectations to the game.
Many say that it's a blend between Action, Strategy, and RPG, and if we stretch the terms a little I might say it's true, but it's quite thin in every category.
Let me start by saying that I liked playing this game, it was quite intuitive and fun.
You start the game as a very young man (Pirate), and the pre-story is that a band of "bad" pirates has kidnapped the most of your family, and have hidden them in small cabins all over caribien.
Well before you will be able to take it up with these pirates, you must enhance your ship, earn som money, and get yourself a couple of character enhancing tools like, Swords, Armour, and get some special crews that will boost your skills with the ship in different ways.
You start with a small but versatile ship, and a little crew, and you start right outside one of the major towns from the country you want to align yourself with (England, France, Spain, Nederland).
You can navigate your ship either from birds eye view, or FP view using the arrow keys. If you want to goto a town you actually just sail into the town, and you will get a town selection screen, where you almost always will have the same choices: 1. The govenor/Captain/Mayor (Quests/promotion/Wife 2. Tavern: (Crew/Rumors/Buy character enhancements). 3. Merchants (Buy/sell different goods & Cannons for your ship). 4. Shipyard (Upgrade/repair ship).
Interesting features:
1. You never run out of cannon balls/grapes/chainballs.
2. You can't buy ships in the shipyard or any other place, you have to capture them if you want another ship. You can sell ships to the shipyard.
3. A ship can be upgraded up to 10 times in different harbors (Platings, Sails, Golden cannons etc.)
4. When you sail into another ship you will be asked if you want to engage or not, it's ALWAYS a choice, you never have to fight at sea.
5. Seabattles are a special mode where you fire and navigate your ship in realtime against one or more opponents. You can evade the flying cannon balls with a versatile ship.
6. You can have up to 8 ships in your fleet, but only your master ship will engage in battle.
7. The number of crew members influences your ability to manoeuvre your ship and the reload time of your cannons.
8. You character get's older during the game, and will eventually have to retire.
Action part:
1. Seabattles, 3rd person overview realtime.
2. Swordfight (Ship, bar, Fighting for your girl) 3rd person sideview semi realtime. You have 3 different attacks, and 3 different blocks one for each attack type. You don't have a lifebar, but every time a character is hit he will have to retreat a few meters. The one to push his enemy fully back wins the swordfight.
3. Dancing, 3rd person view (closeup). To impress the girls you have to show your talent on the dance floor. The classic music plays and the fancy dresses are a most. You have up to 6 dance steps (moves) that you must master. Your partner will with a handwave show you what you should do next, and you should react accordingly within a very short time, unless you want to look like a complete failure.
4. Snaeaking into a town (3rd person birdeye). Find your way through the town to the tavern or goveners house (only options), but avoid the guards.
You can on your journey find "things" that will help you making the action games easier.
Strategy part:
1. Buying and selling goods in different harbors to get profit.
2. Land battles is turn based strategy with a few companies of soldiers.
3. The balance with your relationship to every nation.
RPG-part:
1. Decide which girl you want to marry/impress
2. A few choices in dialogs.
3. Upgrade your characters personal items, but your characters has no stats, at least not any you can see or upgrade.
4. Get promotions up to govenor yourself.
5. Follow a main story (Rescue your family)
6. Explore a world for hidden tresures/towns/ports etc.
You can replay the game aligned with different nations, and up to 6 difficulties, and 3 or 4 different periods around year 1600 - 1800.
As said before none of the different genre elements is especiallly deep, but somehow it was still a very pleasant experience to play this game.
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Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:57 am |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Thanks for the review, MichaelC.
Seems like they really didn't change much from the original game. That's likely to be just fine for me. Looks like I've got something to look forward to for Xmas.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:59 pm |
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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
Nice thorough synopsis Mr. Black Dragon!
My this is truly looking to be a conundrum indeed, so many games I want to play, so little time to actually do so. I wanna be a pirate too 
Cap'n Paws sounds ok. I guess there should be a color noted in my moniker as well, maybe Cap'n Whitepaws, or just simply WhitePaws. Or maybe the blue thing would work, BluePaw, it could be the result of an old fight with an octopus when I fell overboard one drunken night that left the fur on one paw permanently dyed blue from the ink defense mechanism. I want both eyes tho, I couldnt hang with the eyepatch thing. I end up for one reason or another with one contact lens before, and I get a horrible headache and my depth perception is way off.
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“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain |
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Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:05 am |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
I have three new unplayed games at the moment
Halflife 2 - Collector's Edition
Spellforce - Shadow of the Phoenix
and Pirates!
I'll start playing Pirates! this weekend, because the old Amiga Version
is one of my all time favorites.
The other games have to wait 
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Wed Dec 15, 2004 7:03 pm |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
Nice review Michael. It gave me impression that it's not a game for me. |
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Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:25 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
I spent some quality time with the game. When all is said and done, it's very much like the original, a typical Sid Meier game. That is to say, it's a simple game without a great deal of depth that somehow manages to be great fun to play. Think about it- you could say much the same about classics like Civ and RR Tycoon.
Probably not going to threaten anyone's Top 5 lists, but Pirates is a solid game that will fill as much or as little time as you want to devote to it with tons of replayability. With all the junk being released these days, you could certainly find worse ways to spend your cash.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:43 am |
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Guybrush Threepwood
High Emperor
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 500
Location: Oklahoma |
Actually I've played the original. You get alot less options. The one on the nintendo anyway.
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"What are you gonna do? Release the dogs?! Or the bees?! Or dogs with bees in their mouth so that when they bark they shoot bees at you?" - Homer Simpson |
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Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:13 am |
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