Sid Meirs Pirates!

[rise]

i was looking at getting a new game for my son and i. he's almost 9. was kinda thinking this game might be cool. looks like something with a lot of open-ended gameplay.

also, is this game a complete hog? i remember seeing a benchmark and the fps were horrible, like half of what far cry, doom3, hl2 etc. i only glanced at it (i think it might have been Tom's) as i wasn't really looking for a new game then. i'm pretty sure my 6800gt will be fine but he also plays on a laptop and i'm not sure of the system specs. i was just thinking if it was croaking (like 30-35 fps iirc) a desktop would it even have a chance on a laptop?

thanks

edit- and whats with that obnoxious "powercolor" add at the top of the screen

 

[Megatomic]

I was thinking of getting this game as well, I'll subscribe to this thread.

 

[screw3d]

It runs fine on my 9700 pro.. I didn't like the game though

 

[rise]

what didn't you like?

 

[Megatomic]

Why don't you like it screw3d? And are you selling/trading your game for anything else?

 

[BlueWeasel]

I played it at a friend's house and thought it was pretty good, even though games like Pirates don't hold my interest very long. It's very open-ended and there is tons of replay value.

It played very well on his system with a 9700 Pro and I wouldn't consider it a hog. I don't know about the actual framerate but it was more than playable. On a game like this, you don't 60 FPS like you do with other first person shooters.

 

[rise]

cool, thanks for the input. so long as its a playable frame rate i'm fine. i'll have to find out what the lappy is that he plays on is. for instance sims 2 died on it.

i do like the replay value, that is important. is it kind of like rome:tw as far as gameplay--going from the world map to battles?

 

[Bar81]

I don't know what kind of crack pipe this forum is on but Pirates! is a classic with infinite replayability. If you don't like this game you don't deserve to be a gamer.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: Bar81
I don't know what kind of crack pipe this forum is on but Pirates! is a classic with infinite replayability. If you don't like this game you don't deserve to be a gamer.

very helpful.

thanks

 

[drag]

I like this game a lot. lots of levels of difficulty and competely open-ended. You can even not be a pirate if you don't want to and complete most things in the game.

I have a 2400+ AMD proccessor and a Geforce FX 5900 XT (or some such thing.. the cheaper versions of the 5900) and I am running it on Linux under Cedega.

I find it completely playable, although it seems to have a low framerate during CGI sequences, which are rare anyways. A real non-issue. I figure it's just because it runs under cedega, instead of natively in Windows.

 

[Sunner]

Pretty funny game, though of course not as good as the original, and since I played the original for endless hours, the remake doesn't have quite the replay value.
But of course, remakes of classics never live up to the original

 

[skace]

I bought it but didn't like it too much. It got old very fast because all you do is keep recapturing the same people 16 times in a row. Didn't seem to hog resources at all.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: skace
I bought it but didn't like it too much. It got old very fast because all you do is keep recapturing the same people 16 times in a row. Didn't seem to hog resources at all.

I agree. Gets old very quickly.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

How are the ship battles?

 

[jer0608]

Originally posted by: rise4310

also, is this game a complete hog? i remember seeing a benchmark and the fps were horrible, like half of what far cry, doom3, hl2 etc. i only glanced at it (i think it might have been Tom's) as i wasn't really looking for a new game then. i'm pretty sure my 6800gt will be fine but he also plays on a laptop and i'm not sure of the system specs. i was just thinking if it was croaking (like 30-35 fps iirc) a desktop would it even have a chance on a laptop?

My wife played it fine with a GeForce 4 MX. P4 2.6 with 512 MB RAM. She was running at least 1024x768, maybe 1280 x 1024.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
How are the ship battles?

Pretty fun with a small ship, you can speed up and circle around other ships. Plus you can pursue ships. But once you get a bigger ship, the battles go kind of stale. You basically encounter an enemy, turn your ship sideways and fire a mass of cannonballs into their side, instantly wrecking them. Most of your battles, the enemy ship will just turn and run and making chase usually costs too much time. If the enemy ship doesn't flee from your massive ship, they will usually sail right into it and force you into a duel which is just a series of key presses until you knock the other guy off the boat.

So my suggestion would be to stick with a small ship for fun battles. But I didn't bother trying to play the game through with a small ship, I'm guessing you wouldn't earn much money.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
How are the ship battles?

Pretty fun with a small ship, you can speed up and circle around other ships. Plus you can pursue ships. But once you get a bigger ship, the battles go kind of stale. You basically encounter an enemy, turn your ship sideways and fire a mass of cannonballs into their side, instantly wrecking them. Most of your battles, the enemy ship will just turn and run and making chase usually costs too much time. If the enemy ship doesn't flee from your massive ship, they will usually sail right into it and force you into a duel which is just a series of key presses until you knock the other guy off the boat.

So my suggestion would be to stick with a small ship for fun battles. But I didn't bother trying to play the game through with a small ship, I'm guessing you wouldn't earn much money.

Do you not control multiple ships?

 

[skace]

I don't recall ever controlling multiple ships, although if someone attacked my fleet, I could join that ships battle IIRC. Your fleet just sort of follows you around. Someone correct me if theres a way, but I always ended up attacking with 1, my main ship. I played the game right before I started WoW, and stopped after my first run through. December/January time frame?

 

[mryellow2]

You always have only 1 ship in battle although you can fight against 2 at one time.

It's pretty fun, a bit different from the other games out there. It's very old school in that the objective seems to be getting the highest score (fame). It even keeps a record of high scores, hall of champions or some such.

 

[Sunner]

Sloop of War is by far the best ship IMO, it'll take anything out with easy

 

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: skace
I bought it but didn't like it too much. It got old very fast because all you do is keep recapturing the same people 16 times in a row. Didn't seem to hog resources at all.

I agree. Gets old very quickly.

 

[mugs]

Not a hog by any means... it runs fine on my system - Athlon XP 2200+, GeForce2 (TWO) MX400.

 

[Kilrsat]

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: skace
I bought it but didn't like it too much. It got old very fast because all you do is keep recapturing the same people 16 times in a row. Didn't seem to hog resources at all.

I agree. Gets old very quickly.

I didn't think the original got old and I don't think this one gets old. You never have to do the same thing the same way, and there are multiple ways to "beat" the game. The difficulty levels scale nicely, and you're free to roam about the world doing whatever you please. In terms of a single-player only game, I don't think it gets much more flexible than that.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Kilrsat

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: skace
I bought it but didn't like it too much. It got old very fast because all you do is keep recapturing the same people 16 times in a row. Didn't seem to hog resources at all.

I agree. Gets old very quickly.

I didn't think the original got old and I don't think this one gets old. You never have to do the same thing the same way, and there are multiple ways to "beat" the game. The difficulty levels scale nicely, and you're free to roam about the world doing whatever you please. In terms of a single-player only game, I don't think it gets much more flexible than that.

You're free to roam around the world doing whatever you please, but there's only so many things to do and you do them over and over and over again... and it takes a long time to make progress.

 

[warcrow]

I got the game for my birthday, but I havent had time to play it just yet.