Sid Meiers' Pirates! (PSP) Review
Posted by Shawn Struck on 03.21.2007
The famous adventure games aims to bring a pirate's life to the PSP. Will playing it have you shaking your booty or walking the plank?
Pirates! first sailed into gamer’s lives in 1987 and was followed by two PC games, first in 1993 with Pirates! Gold and then 2004's remake with Sid Meier's Pirates!, which also saw a release on the Xbox.
Now Sid Meier’s Pirates! Franchise sets sail on the PSP, under the name: “Pirates: Live the Life”. It’s sort of a mix between the PC and Xbox versions, bringing back some of the features that were stripped down for the console release, while also tweaking some parts of the PC version, like sneaking into town.
Graphics
Pirates! looks like a PC game that’s been slightly squished to fit comfortably on the PSP’s smaller screen, leading to feelings of claustrophobia on the open seas at times. While you can zoom in for a closer look during the sailing sequences and ship battles, it’s still hard to tell whether you’re attacking a Spanish war ship or French trader ship… until it’s too late. This often leads to sinking ships from your own nationality.
Regalia-related issues aside, this is one of the most detailed games to appear on the PSP. The environments look beautifully detailed and the water effects are stunning. Even the character models look great, with loads of little touches, and fluid animation.
Gameplay
For those who have never played Pirates! in any of its incarnations, you've missed out on one of the most fun, open-ended games that's ever been released. You begin a career (of which you'll have many) by choosing your starting year, difficulty and naval allegiance, (English, Dutch, French or Spanish). Most every action you perform will alter your standing with one or more of these countries. Attack one of your enemies and not only will your country begin rewarding you with a new rank, some loot and maybe even some land, but the attacked country and possibly even its allies will turn against you.
Once a country has you on its bad side, its ships may begin attacking you at open sea and it may block your entrance into its towns. Anger a faction enough and its town may even fire upon your position should you merely get close. One of the game's coolest elements is that the ownership of towns can and will change over time. You can attack and take them over for your own country, and the computer will fight amongst itself over time.
While this sounds like Pirates! is based entirely around battles, that's not the case at all. You can make a lot of money by trading goods amongst towns or selling off booty that you've picked up from other ships. Treasure maps and the like will make their way into your hands, and the governor's daughters are always looking for a dance partner and even husband. Should you have an aversion to open warfare, you can make an entire career out of simply trading goods and looking for lost treasures.
The most important aspect of any game of Pirates! however is the management of your fleet and crew. If you win a battle without sinking a ship you can add that to your fleet, though you need to manage your total crew count with the required hands for each ship, possibly leaving you with a small crew on your lead battle ship. You also need to make sure that your crew stays happy, and the bigger the crew, the larger the likelihood of mutiny is, so keeping the crew happy and morale high is central to a well-running rig.
Sound
The game’s music is also a delight to hear and there’s a different tune for everything from sailing to dueling to dancing. Your ears will also be treated to some detailed sound effects as well. You’ll hear everything from seagulls to fellow pirates carousing in taverns. When your cannon fire hits the enemy’s ship, you’ll even hear panicked screams. There’s no voice acting, but the characters do speak in a sort of funny gibberish that’s ten times funnier than what you’ll hear on The Sims, mostly due to the hilarious “pirate accent”.
Fun Factor
While all of these things are rather simple, most all of them were implemented almost perfectly in their original design, adding up to make the game larger than the sum of its parts. Should a number of these have fallen short in the PSP port, especially the bigger ones like swordfights and ship battles, then the game would have come apart at the seems. Luckily, Full Fat did a mostly great job in keeping them very much intact and most of them are identical to their PC counterparts.
Sneaking into towns, which was a new addition to the 2004 remake, is a little disappointing as well as you don't have complete control over your character's whereabouts. Instead, you move him between boxes, from the center of one square to the next. You can't see them, but they're there. When you move to one, your character has to move all the way into it before he'll come back, should you see a guard and want to quickly hide. This makes it a little less action-oriented, which is odd considering that the PSP is a more action control-friendly device.
The dancing also has seen a change, though it's not necessarily for the better. Instead of having to watch your partner's hands, a directional cue will scroll across the bottom of the screen and tell you what to press. The problem is that it doesn't appear until midway through the screen, so it's more of a reactionary thing than a timing one. It's not really any worse, but it's not better, either, and just makes you look at the bottom of the screen rather than the dancing.
Finding treasure has been improved here. Whereas the Xbox port had you automatically find treasure if you had a map without the need to navigate on-foot at all, the PSP game sees land travel return along with the new dangers of booby traps and wild animals that will eat your crew alive. It's the most engaging version of treasure hunting yet, and we're glad to see it.
Lasting Appeal
Lastly, Pirates! on the PSP also includes an Ad-Hoc multiplayer mode for up to four players with roughly a half-dozen maps. It's rather simplistic but it can also be a great deal of fun. If you're really into the game's ship battles, as you should be, this can prove to be some good fun. Just don't rely on the PC boats to put up a realistic challenge as they like to run in circles and crash into land while also landing perfect shots. At least they're there to fill out the ocean.
The 411
Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life is a really good port of an absolutely classic game. It's not perfect by any means, as sneaking into town and some of the presentation isn't quite as PSP-friendly as we'd hoped, but everything that makes Pirates! what it is is here and in fantastic form. The most important elements, like ship battles, exploration and such are identical to what you 'd find on the PC, which is really what matters. If you own a PSP, head to the nearest port and hand over yer doubloons for this one.
Graphics
8.0
Wide open seas, detailed characters and plenty of great looking locations.
Gameplay
8.0
Not just the original, but some new features as well.
Sound
8.0
Great sound effects and catchy music you can riverdance.
Lasting Appeal
8.0
You can play this game over and over and not have the same experience twice.
