Avast, ye scurvy dogz! Here there be Sid Meier's Pirates!, first impressions... aargh

[Philliesfan980]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Stopped by EB Games on the way home (finally a game store in my part of the city). Went a little wild and bought not only the Limited Edition but three other games as well: MoH Pacific Assault, Children of the Nile and Mafia (for $3.95). Three of the games are for Christmas, one obviously isn't.

Wow. Mafia for 3.95 is a steal. Great game.

[Buccaneer]

We had talked about Mafia a while back and got turned off by their change of engine/design to more of a GTA-type game. But for $3.95 (75% off of their used game price), it's probably worth a try.

I'll be loading up soon. I've waited 10 years for this (since my obsession with P!G and the origin of my internet handle).

[Solecismic]

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

I remember I could not play any 3D games as a teen (I threw up after playing the demo of Tomb Raider). It has gotten better, but I still will get motion sick sometimes.

[Buccaneer]

Jim, I take it then that you didn't get into Sea Dogs? They were the first to revolutionize ship sailing on a realistic sea with the ship going up and down..up and down...rolling aft and fore...leaning port and starboard..rolling..rolling... Oops, sorry, got carried away.

I had thought motion sickness and vertigo only comes from movement in the 1st person?

[Buccaneer]

Nice map that comes in the box. A map of the Caribbean and the Spanish Main on fake parchment. Seeing the names of some of the cities reminds me of trying to find the Treasure Fleet in port and the devil of a time trying to get through the cannons of Cartagena. Those were great memories.

[Buccaneer]

See what me 'earty cartman said about the manual. It truly is a work of genius - and 144 pages too!

[Philliesfan980]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

You don't get sick off of basic football graphics do you.. just wondering.. no reason .

Yeah, I have a mild case case of "video game sickness" as well. First person shooters are normally out of the question for me, unless they are slow.

[Fritz]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Stopped by EB Games on the way home (finally a game store in my part of the city). Went a little wild and bought not only the Limited Edition but three other games as well: MoH Pacific Assault, Children of the Nile and Mafia (for $3.95). Three of the games are for Christmas, one obviously isn't.

You just killed my over/under bet on how long it would take you to post.

[Buccaneer]

Fritz, had to work all day, so no rum for me until now.

[Buccaneer]

I don't see this posted anywhere, even at firaxis, but the manual has a neat section for old Pirates!/P!G games like me that wants to know what's changed. Here they are:

1. Ship vs Land combat - Gone. When you choose to attack a town, you move your men ashore and attack via land combat.

2. Sun sightings - Gone. Don't remember this.

3. Insufficient crew - remember you had to have a minimum of 8 plus 4 for each cannon? If you didn't, all of your cannons didn't fire and if under 8, you had to abandon ship. Now it's set by type of ship and this affects sailing speed, maneuverability. You can fire all your cannons but reloads take longer. As ships take damage, the number of minimum crew increases.

[more]

[cartman]

I'm finding all sorts of neat things after playing for the past couple of hours:

you can see other pirates in action. I was sailing along, minding my own business, when I saw a pirate attacking a Dutch ship. Pretty cool

the dancing is pretty tough! It's kinda like whack a mole. You have a short amount of time to press the right direction. Mess up, and you look like me on the dance floor Do it right, and you earn favors from the governor's daughter.

I've met quite a few of the governor's daughters, but evidently the one in Sanitago is a major babe. At least that's what the tavern guys across the Carribean tell me. I haven't gotten the chance to meet her yet. The ole' Guv is keeping her under wraps.

The land battles are much improved. There's actually strategy involved, instead of a mass of guys marching around.

Yes, believe it or not, the puffy pirate shirt is included as a bonus item!

Nothing yet to disappoint me in the game. It is still living up to all the expectations I've had build up over the past couple of years since it was announced!

[Buccaneer]

What's new are

4. Multi-ship combat

5. Sneaking in and out of cities. In the originals, it was a pass or fail thing, now you have to guide your character through the streets and alleys to get where you want to go (merchant, governor, etc.), avoiding or knocking out patrol guards.

6. Dancing. Ummm....

7. Special items like jewelry (to impress the governor's daughter), swords (for better dueling), and many others.

8. Crew specialists including cooks, gunners, sail-makers, etc. - all to help at sea for morale, battle repairs, etc.

[klayman]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

disappointing

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

What's new are

6. Dancing. Ummm....

Yikes... that just might have turned me off this game.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by klayman

disappointing

Oh, come on. Do a google image search on "nurse" if you want something more satisfying... just don't expect to see it posted here.

[Buccaneer]

Everything so far looks very familiar to me. You choose your nationality, your starting era, your skill (fencing, gunnery, navigation, wit and charm or medicine) and difficulty level. You start in one of the main ports of your nationality. The map is the same as before - except that instead of flat 2D, it's in full 3D. When you enter a port, you have the same options as before: visit governor, merchant, shipwright, tavern or bank. Your ships carries pretty much the same basic cargos as before: gold, food, luxuries, goods, spice and sugar (I think these is era-dependant), and cannons. I am gald that they did not try to complicate this by adding more port buildings or cargos. The genius of the original game was, like Civ2, in its simple yet deep gameplay.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Yikes... that just might have turned me off this game.

According to the manual, you dance to help earn the daughter's favor but it's not the only way. If you don't dance (which is just an add-on from the original pass/fail die-roll), then you don't climb the highest society rung, you settle for others.

[Buccaneer]

To answer the question about motion sickness. While under sail, there are two view: one more of a traditional top-down isometric and a new view from "behind the shoulders (or ship in this case)". The latter view can cause some motion discomfort I imagine, much like watching the horizon tilt in a plane. The former view should present no problems and will work great for sailing and combat.

[Poli]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Ye get ta playin' now, ya scurvy dog, 'less I send ye ta the bot'um of davy jones' lockah! Arr!

Spoken from someone who didn't make the 45-hour long drive ta get it. I elected to order it online if it sounds good.

Shouldn't this read, "sink your bones to Davy Jones"?

[Buccaneer]

A note about performance. I haven't built a new PC yet with the 64-bit chips and stuff so I'm still using the same system I built almost 2 years ago: amb 2000+ cpu, 512mb memory and 128mb geforce4. There are a number of game settings and I let it choose what's it's recommended for my system and it pretty much has upper-end graphics details but at 800x600. I tend to play all graphics games (including Gothic and MoH) at that resolution and to me, it looks great - including this game. Given how smooth everything runs now, I think I could bump it if I wanted to without noticeable degradation. For example, I could lessen the details (e.g., object details - like other sailing ships and passing ports - is at max right now) and go to 1024x768. The specs call for 1 Ghz and 256mb memory so I don't think performance will be big issue for most gamers.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Jim, I take it then that you didn't get into Sea Dogs? They were the first to revolutionize ship sailing on a realistic sea with the ship going up and down..up and down...rolling aft and fore...leaning port and starboard..rolling..rolling... Oops, sorry, got carried away.

I had thought motion sickness and vertigo only comes from movement in the 1st person?

No, anything that moves the camera can do it. Some of us are worse than others. I have a dreadfully bad case of it.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

No sir, you are not. Most 3rd person games are off-limits for me unless there's a static background (the people turn, not the background). 1st person? Forget it.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by klayman

disappointing

[Flasch186]

one thing ill say is, i can play FOF for an unreal amount of hours, but after a few hours of Pirates, ive had to take a break.

[Buccaneer]

I just played around for the past 2 hours and it was hard to stop. Everything that I ever wanted in an upgrade is there and unlike the disappointment of Civ3, the firaxis team did a GREAT job in sticking with what worked and made Pirates so much fun and intense to play.

The only quibbles that I have are that with some of the text colors, it makes it hard to read and sometimes the information that I want to know is either a little hard to find or missing. Also they appears to have sped up the game but I don't know if there is a speed setting.

I'm going up to bed and will take the manual with me to read. It's going to be a fun Thanksgiving week (though it's too bad I have to go into the office on Friday).

Yo ho!

[Blade6119]

Originally Posted by klayman

disappointing

Any hotter for you?

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

I have trouble with FPS games that incorporate "head bob". Any FPS that does not let me turn off head bobbing doesn't get played for very long. Games without head bob I can play for a while, barring weird issues with how they animate (low framerates can get, for example).

[klayman]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Oh, come on. Do a google image search on "nurse" if you want something more satisfying... just don't expect to see it posted here.

Oh wow...there is like porn all over the internet!!! Thanks Franklin, why didn't anybody tell me this sooner.

[klayman]

Originally Posted by Blade6119

Any hotter for you?

Much better.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

avast ye scurvy BOYZ?

Uh, yeah. What kind of pirate ship ye be runnin?

It's called matelotage, look it up. It's a pirate homosexual marriage, and it was quite common during these days. Now, if this game built in matelotage, I'd be very impressed about the historical addition.


-Anxiety

[Anthony]

(takes one step away from Anxiety)

[CamEdwards]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

It's called matelotage, look it up. It's a pirate homosexual marriage, and it was quite common during these days. Now, if this game built in matelotage, I'd be very impressed about the historical addition.


-Anxiety

Common according to whom, other than B.R. Burg, author of "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition"? Every article I've read that references that work seems to think that despite Burg's work, there's not a lot of evidence that matelotages were common outside of Tortuga (and even then only for a relatively short period of time).

Not to taint this thread with cultural politics... just wanted a bit of a rebuttal. And this game sounds amazing. Now to convince my wife that I should be able to buy a game one month before Christmas.

[rkmsuf]

(takes two steps away from Cam)

[CamEdwards]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

(takes two steps away from Cam)

get back here ya big sissy. I just like to do research when I hear something that sounds too weird to be true.

[GrantDawg]

(puts his right foot in. Takes his right foot out)

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by CamEdwards

get back here ya big sissy.

Sounds like a phrase used many times back in the day.

[cartman]

ok, enough about matelotage, rebuttals, and other things related to pirate butt lovin'. That's a side of pirate booty this game doesn't cover.

I played until 3am... Good thing a holiday weekend is here, and I finished my projects ahead of time. I can honestly say that if you loved the original, there is nothing that changed in this game to keep you from enjoying it just as much, if not more. They kept the core of the game pretty much the same, and the additions they made only enhance the experience, they don't take away at all.

If you are looking for a sailing sim, a fencing sim, or (I'd be really worried about you if you were looking for this) a ballroom dancing sim, you are going to be disappointed. The game is by no means arcadey, but the physics are exaggerated a bit, for the sake of presentation. The emphasis on the pirate lifestyle, and this is where the game excels. Going from port to port, sailing the high seas, tracking down treasure ships, it's all there.

One of the big things I noticed different from the original game are the addition of pirate towns. You might be in an area where the main cities are owned by nations that do not have too high an opinion of you. If you need to get a boat fixed, or buy some food, in the old version you were pretty much hosed. Now there are pirate towns, where you can sail in and get things fixed, albeit at a higher price than a colonial town.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Because I wanted to play ESPN College Hoops, my wife grabbed Pirates! from me. When my basketball game was done, I watched her play for an hour or two, and it looked like it was as fun as ever. There will be one part of the game that could trigger motion sickness. Try sneaking into a town sometime. Your character stays at the center of the screen and always faces the top of the screen. That means the entire screen rotates every time you turn. I got dizzy just watching it.

Everything else seemed great, though. I actually think the dancing looks hilarious but fun.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Am I the only one here who gets motion sick from many video games? (Can't watch NYPD Blue, or Arrested Development, either).

I enjoyed a lot Call of Duty but after a few hours i need to stop so ill, sometimes about to puke because the movement. It's specially bad if i drink a lot of coffe. Damn who said that to play the whole day is for lazy guys? it's a great effort!

[Qwikshot]

I enjoy this game. I wrote a review, but it's gone.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by CamEdwards

Common according to whom, other than B.R. Burg, author of "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition"? Every article I've read that references that work seems to think that despite Burg's work, there's not a lot of evidence that matelotages were common outside of Tortuga (and even then only for a relatively short period of time).

Not to taint this thread with cultural politics... just wanted a bit of a rebuttal. And this game sounds amazing. Now to convince my wife that I should be able to buy a game one month before Christmas.

I was doing research on Tortuga when I discovered matelotage, so if it was rare outside of Tortuga, and just common there, I'll accept that. I apologize for making it sound more widespread among the carribbean.

-Anxiety

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

I was doing research on Tortuga when I discovered matelotage, so if it was rare outside of Tortuga, and just common there, I'll accept that. I apologize for making it sound more widespread among the carribbean.

-Anxiety

Ah the French and their wacky ways.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

I enjoy this game. I wrote a review, but it's gone.

Me too. I played until 3:30AM last night, wrote a couple of paragraphs here about it, and now those words have vanished. The abbreviated version:

The game is great fun.

[Buccaneer]

I gave this a lot of thought to today at work (slow day) as well as finished reading the manual cover to cover. I agree with cartman that, like the original, it's a lot of things that work well together without being too bogged down in any one area (that was the fatal flaw of Port Royale, imo). A great strategy game has to flow smoothly despite having a lot going on and the way Sid does it by focusing your "character" on a single element (in this case, your ship) and keeping all of the details simple and manageable.

The ballroom element is simple once you get the hang of it but here's what is in the manual:

"You can impress a governor's daughter by gaining higher rank (but only from her nationality). You can also win her heart by skillful dancing and by presenting her with jewelry she covets."

I think I forgot to mention land battles last night. That was the achilles heel of P! and P!G and for this version, it is tremendously improved - almost like a strategic chess game or turn-based capture the flag.

After reading the manual, I really like how they kept all of the eras and nationalities. What they did improve upon, as been said, is that there are more ports of all types in each era - from Jesuit missions to Native villages. Also, they did expand upon the types of ships as well as making the list more accurate and realistic. Before, you went from Pinnace to Sloop to Barque; now we have Mail Runner, Sloop of War, Royal Sloop and various Brigs and three kinds of Barques for small to medium-sized ships.

[Calis]

Hmm, this isn't Pirates related, but Sid related.

The Civilization franchise got sold today apparently, and it's rumored to be a pretty good sum. No word yet on who bought it, thought it was interesting.

The likely culprits would be EA or MS though.

Keep the thoughts on the game coming in, I was (un)forunately given World of Warcraft, so I'm going to end up waiting on Pirates a bit..want to be able to focus on it without other games around taunting me.

[Buccaneer]

You know, I saw something funny. In the manual for Pirates, there is an acknowledgement for the CivIV team. I hadn't visit Apolyton in a long time so that caught me by surprise. And now this news which I think firaxis will still develop but be published by someone else?

[Calis]

I would think so since they've supposedly been working on it already, but I don't know.

I know Infogrames has been hurting, so I can see them selling it. I heard rumors that the franchise was bought for over 15 million Euros which seems ridicolous to me, but who knows?

[Buccaneer]

But didn't Atari buy Infogrammes a while back?

[Calis]

I think Infogrames owned the Atari name for quite a while, but they never used it until Neverwinter Nights...they brought it back to boost some sales with the nostalgia.