Upon recommendation by my uncle, I started playing this game yesterday and all I can say is, "Wow." It's like masturbation in game form. It's based off an old Commodore 64 game and from what I have heard, it plays almost exactly like the old game with new twists. I have not had this much fun with a game in a long time.

Quick game summary: Your family is in debt and thrown in prison, you escape capture, grow up, join a crew and sail to the Americas, start a mutiny and take over the ship.

This is where the gameplay starts. You start by choosing which country you want to serve under (English, Spanish, French, or the Dutch) and you will start in a town of that country. From here on, it's basically free reign. You can attack whatever ships you want, gain ranks for countries, impress governor's daughters and go to balls with them (you actually have to dance, kind of like DDR style), search for buried treasure, talk to the locals and gain quests, raid towns, sneak into town, yadda yadda. The list goes on and on. So much to do!

You aren't limited to one ship either. You can have a whole fleet of them if you have enough meen to sustain each. You can buy upgrades for your ships and get special items for your character which help your dueling and over all effectiveness of your crew.

I could keep talking, but even I don't know all of the crap that you can do yet and I am wasting time I could be using to play. My suggestion to you is to get ahold of this game and play it, damn you! Play it and like it!

Sid Meier's Pirates!

Is it as good as Pirates of the Carribean (Game)? Because I love PotC... By the screenshots it almost looks the same :p, but it got a better review, so I'll have to check this out.

this looks.... cool... I might buy this for christmass

Is this the sequel to the "Pirates Gold", Sega Genesis game?

I've played the original, I had it for my Tandy 1000. :p

The original was for PC/Tandy/other knockoffs, and it was called just "Pirates!". Pirates! Gold is the gold version, redone with better graphics. Consoles spawned various inferior versions.

As far as I know, it's just a remake. Pirates had no story, other than history itself.

yeah sounds much like potc.

Saw some people playing this at work... the ballroom dancing looks riveting.

Your loss for not trying it.

Pirates! rocked and Pirates! rocks; easily better than Half-Life 2, Sid Meier is just a ****ing genius.

I managed to acquire this game myself last night... and honestly, it's JUST like the old Pirates! game. I'm amazed. Aside from a few minor additions(the ballroom scene comes to mind), the gameplay is exactly the same and exactly as addictive.

Currently sailing over the Caribbean with a Spanish War Gaellon in search for a treasure that I found, as well as the possibly location of the first family member as a Dutch admiral. Shot down two note-worthy pirates as well.

I have so many beautiful hos across the land it's ridiculous. There aren't enough ruby rings and diamond necklaces to go around! I am such a pirate badass. Wit and charm is the only focus worth taking. Make sure you start the game twice so you get the option to select your difficulty, focus, and starting year. Otherwise you will be playing on super easy.

Did they tweak some of the things wrong with the first game too? (for instance fencing skilll was useless and so was wit and charm).

Also can you have more then one ship in a battle? The battles got kinda dull when even though i had 3 ships, it was always just my barge vs their Galleon. I would have loved a 3vs3 ship battle.

ARe there more ships types this time around and do certain countries have specific types of ships or are they all generic Frigate, Galleon, Barge, ect...?

I am installing it this moment

It's as awesome as the first one

Yes, because a game based on priates is nothing but dancing...