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Customer Ratings:

Parents: I have absolutely no idea why they gave this game a "T" for teen. The content in this game is light hearted and humerous for any age. Understanding how to play might be a bit tough for energetic little ones, but chances are if they are patient enough to books read by themselves they'll be old enough able to handle this game with no real problem. Be aware though that this game is direct towards those types who like games that usually involve a good deal of time (think monopoly, risk, chess, checkers, ect.)

Everbody I know who has played this game loves it and I...I am not sure why. This game is incrediblely simple and repetitive with a lot of stuff they could have packed into it left out. It has almost zero story. The mini games are few and always the same. Graphically the game is pleasing and the music is happy and positive, but after a while all the environments are pretty much the same. Basically, you could finish the whole game in a few hours if you wanted.

Yet, it's still so fun that you can just keep playing it over and over. It's one of those unique game that you play for about a couple hours a day and it never gets old. Time just flys when your playing this thing and I don't I'll ever really understand why. It only has about four minigames in it, yet me and the rest of my family still find it hard to put down.

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It's a pirate game based in the late 17th-century Caribbean Islands where the player starts out as a young teenage boy and can assume one of several roles. You can be a plundering rogue taking treasure from any ship in your path and sacking ports, or dedicate your life to avenging your family.

Pros:

Excellent open ended adventure. You can either exclusively complete quests that guide to the rogue who kidnapped your family, sail around and pillage and plunder as you want, be a privateer for a specific country and target only the enemies of that country, or a combination of these, with a bit of trade strategy thrown in for flavor.

Mixture of mini-games, story lines, and game play elements maintains interest level. Various quests abound to move the story along, or you can take your chances and just capture ships at your leisure.

Several styles of gameplay are included, such as: turn-based strategy, stealth, real-time ship-to-ship combat, duels with swords, even a rhythm based dance game

Addictive gameplay keeps one playing just a little while longer, which in turn becomes hours

Whimsical approach to subject keeps the game from taking itself too seriously. What violence is here is cartoon-like, at it's absolute worst.

Minimal resource management makes the game approachable without sacrificing gameplay or strategy. Icons indicate crew morale and food supplies, and hints abound in various pause menus.

Interface and controls adapted well for the Xbox. The world map overlays nicely onto to the screen during gameplay, avoiding the need to constantly switch from map to gameplay.

Cons:

Serious Bugs/Quality Control Issues: At one point in the middle of a quest central to the story, my ship "flew" over to the Pacific Ocean side of Central America, an area you can't get to through "normal" gameplay. I stayed there for about 4 years in game time, letting the crew run out of food and mutiny, hoping that either one would at least toss me back into my last port. Unfortunately, that never happened, forcing me to restart the game. To add to the frustration, the save points didn't record my last few conquests and quest accomplishments up to that point, forcing me to redo them all over again. My fault for not saving more often, but the game shouldn't throw the player into non-navigable areas either.

Odd save points: It lets you save at any point on the open sea, but it neither saves the game nor allows you to save when you pull into a port. Having the ability to save while in port would have been nice as ports make good landmarks.

Some repetitive gameplay: It can get a bit repetitive at times, having to do the same types of actions repeatedly to move the story along or progress on a given quest.

All in all, a solid, entertaining game. The various styles, gameplay modes, and difficulty levels give the game good replay value overall. While repetitive in some places, and buggy in others, it easily entertains more in a few minutes of playing than other games do in an hour.

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This game is adictive. Very addictive. It's about as open ended as games come in that it has objectives, but you don't need to follow them...at all. You can go around making a name for yourself on the high seas without completing a single objective and your enjoyment wouldn't be diminished a bit. If the "open ended" games of recent like GTA have you bored with the "drive around, shoot this, run from that" style of open ended gameploy, give this a shot and you'll most likely be loving it. Any improvements? Graphics could be better, and I wouldn't mind hearing actual spoken dialogue, but that's it. Enjoy!

Honest reviews on Sid Meier's Pirates!

Sid Meier's Pirates! For the Xbox is a updated version of an old pc game. The updated version was originally created once again for the pc but is now ported to the Xbox with some changes from the original. Pirates! is according to Gamerankings.com the 780th best game overall and the 134th best game on the Xbox scoring a overall average of 83% from game ranking sights, but it is still definitely one you should not miss.

There are a large variety of activities to be done in Pirates!. After the game shows the opening movies and you pick the settings for your game you are left with a single ship and the whole world to play in. There are a variety of missions you can go on, but none of them are required. You can seek out pirates to kill for fortune and glory, participate in cannon battles between ships, loot cities, have sword battles, search for buried treasure, or marry the Governor's daughter.

The graphics in the game are quite good and change depending on the situation. If you are in a sword fight or dancing at a ball the graphics are detailed in a mixture of realistic and cartoon style. During the bulk of the game you look at a above head view of your ships as they sail the seas. The only disappointing graphics are when you chose to attack a city; I think they could have done a better job then they did on that part though it may be true to the style of the original game.

There are a few differences between the pc and Xbox versions of the game. All of the differences are good ones in my opinion. The dancing sequences which I found almost impossible on the pc are now much easier. The pace of attacking a city was greatly increased; in the pc version it could take an hour or more to siege a city. There is an optional chain of quests randomly assigned that can be seen as an optional storyline. You do not have to spend hours on land searching for treasure anymore; if you try to land near the treasure you will automatically find it. And finally the sword duels have slightly altered controls for the Xbox controller making them slightly harder.

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a fantastic game. Unlike other games that you can beat and get tired of this one has no real ending; as your pirate gets older he gets worse at everything he does so you have to decide when to retire. This is a fun addictive game that will keep you coming back for years to come. Sid Meier himself said on G4 TV that this was the game he got the most mail over the years to remake. Give it a try and you may be sending out email for a new version in a few years.

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So a little time has passed and now not only can you run the X-box version of this game on the 360, but you can download it from X-box Live! Is it still worth playing today? Oh yes! First of all, I like the console version better than the PC version. It just feels more pick-up-and-play on the Xbox, the controls work beautifully (I vastly prefer pressing buttons to hitting number keys on a keyboard), and with the high-resolution rendering on the 360 the game looks wonderful. In fact, I only have one complaint. You can't skip the intro movie on the 360 for some reason.

If you like the PC version you may want to change over to this version for sheer ease-of-use. If you've never played the game before you ought to give it a try just to find out how a series of minigames can make for a full-blown game, and why Sid Meyer's games are as popular as they are. I don't play it every day. When I do play it I stop when I beat it and leave it alone for a while. But when I do start playing, I get hooked deep until I beat the game again and hopefully best my high score once again (the real replay value comes from trying to end the game with a super-high score). Give it a try and hopefully the game will do the same for you. Have fun!