Pirates! Gold logo CD32

"You, ho, ho and a bottle of rum", "on a dead man's chest", and other piracy-type conversational titbits - it's time for some treasure that's been rediscovered on your CD32.

Ah, what a romantic notion. To sail the seven seas, to explore uncharted waters, and most of all to seek your fortune by finding hidden treasures. If only life fighting it out on the Spanish Main had been like it seem in Errol Flynn movies. Smart tunic, nice shiny boots, a big sword and a pretty princess with a penchant for pirates.

You meet her in Scene Two when you sloop overruns her her fathers bullion boat. You ransack the vessel and afterwards she demands you will be well fung. Scoffing, you replace your truly blade in a scabbard.

Having raped and pillaged your way around her fathers boat, you and the crew take her leave while singing a pirate-like ditty, confident in the knowledge that she's fallen in love with your nonchalant, happy-go-lucky attitude.

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation was that in the first place you'd have been press-ganged into joining the band of miserable deck rats.
No smart tunic, no shiny boots. Just a dirty lump sack shirt, gangrenous beard and a green fog that follows you around everywhere.

Given these parameters for your apparel and general look, it comes as no surprise that there's more chance of the beautiful senorita running off with Captain Pugwash than your good self.
Given the reality of the situation it's a good job for the imagination of Hollywood and computer software programmers.

Although Pirates takes most of its romantic element from Hollywood, large chunks of the scenarios are lifted directly from the annals of history.
For instance, you can choose to unbuckle your swash over a period of some 150 years, taking on the mantle of a Brit or a number of now EC members who we English weren't very friendly with at the time.

If becoming a a Spanish pirate, or a French adventurer isn't enough to satiate your desire for plundering friendly, defenceless traders, then you cn don the garb of a famous explorer or one of the more infamous rogues to sail the high seas.

Having pondered over whether to play Captain Morgan or Francis Drake, you have the opportunity to make a few other choices that have a direct bearing on your future.
For example, you can adjust the difficulty level and more importantly select your special ability. This range of skills varies from expertise with a sword through to charm with officials and more importantly, the ladies.

Once you've deliberated over your options, it's time to cast off and head out into the blue and briny. The basic aim is to journey around various areas of the Caribbean strengthening your ship, bolstering your band of jolly Jack tars and seeking your fortune.

There are various ways to achieve this most roguish of task, each of which revolve around piracy on the high seas. You could choose to work for the governor of a particular island, follow orders and reaping the rewards that being in his employ bring.

Alternatively, you can follow your own instinct and take to the briny in search of untold treasures and wreck havoc in the shipping lanes of the traders, purely for your own benefit.

However, a life on the ocean waves is also fraught with danger for pirates. For one, there are quite a few other pirate-type people knocking around the sea lanes who've been at it far longer than you will have been (you can generally assume that by the fact that they can do a better 'Hoa Ha Jim lad' than you).

Also your crew need their feed, grog and plundering, morale must be kept at a level which keeps them subdued. Failure to maintain your boys results in a mutiny, which ultimately means you ending up in a rowing boat in just your pants with your tricorn showing.
Keeping everybody on board smiling means landing at friendly ports to stock up on food, booze and debauchery. It also serves as a fine opportunity to charm the town's gentry and perhaps find yourself a gossiping wife who may reveal the location of daddy's assets.

All of the sailing and fighting is displayed using an overhead view. You control your ship's direction and can increase and decrease your speed using your masts and sails.

The outcome of a battle can depend on many different things. For instance, if the wind is light then you can get caught and stand a good chance of catching a broodside. However, if everything is favourable the basic objective is to render the enemy immobile and then maraud with your greasy boarding party. Once you've boarded, the play alters to a sword fight between you and the opposing captain, the winner taking the spoils.

This updated version of MicroProse's earlier release doesn't differ too greatly apart from a really neat ray traced animated intro and a proper Cornish pirate-type jig soundtrack.

Although there don't seem to be too many radical changes from the original Pirates, the whole game seems to benefit from both the slick accessing of a CD, and the atmospheric advantages this media grants you.

On the whole Pirates is a more-than-playable foray into the folly of days of olde, when men were men and parrots were either quiet or stuffed. Even though most of the game has been ported (sailing type joke, no?) over from the Amiga 500, Pirates is still well worth your pieces of eight.


Pirates! Gold logo CD32

MicroProse * £24.99 * Out now

Avast me hearties and hoist the mainsail. No, no. no. Yo ho ho and pieces of eight. Do leave off. A flagon of wenches and a pretty ale. Give up eh? Pirates! Gold is an enhanced version of the floppy release which got its first Amiga outing almost four years ago. It's a quite wonderful animated sequence set in an inn where some rum coves behave in a drunken manner.

It's action and adventures as you jump in the boots of a 17th Century buccaneer, sail the Seven Seas while plundering as much loot as possible.

Choose one of four nationalities (English, Dutch, Spanish and French), select a historical period and pick a special ability such as sword fighting or navigation. The gameplay is a mixture of joypad manoeuvring and decision-making with a bit of combat thrown in for good measure.

You can also collect pieces of a treasure map which could lead you to some er, treasure, and there's a great selection of songs to choose from. Pirates! Gold is one of the easiest adventure games to get into and it's great fun, though some might find it a bit repetitive.


Pirates! Gold logo CD32 Amiga Joker Hit

Als 1985 die Ur-Piraten auf dem C64 in See stachen, ahnte niemand, welche Traumkarriere ihrem Programmierkapitän Sid Meier noch bevorstand - und welch gelungenes CD-Game sie anno 1994 abgeben würden!

Als bis dato letzte Station auf dem Siegeszug der Freibeutersimulation durch nahezu sämtliche Computersysteme kam im letzten Jahr die aufgepeppte Gold-Ausführung für PC und Mega Drive heraus. Für Commos Silberschleuder wurde sie jetzt nochmals komplett überarbeitet, aber am bewährten Spielprinzip hat sich natürlich nichts geändert:

Nach wie vor gilt es, im 17. Und 18. Jahrhundert die Karibik zu durchpflügen, um entweder durch Handelsgeschäfte oder raubend und plündernd das große Geld zu machen, ein Gouverneurstöchter zu ehelichen und letztlich den Posten des Vizekönigs zu ergattern.

Über die Meere schippert man auf einer schicken Seekarte, sobald dann eine spanische Galeone, holländische Schaluppe oder englische Karavelle in Sicht kommt, wird (je nach Nationalität und Profession) entweder freundlich gegrüßt oder das Beuteschiff in einem Echtzeit-Seegefecht angegriffen und geentert bzw. gleich versenkt.

Hat man sich fürs Entern entschieden, muß man nach dem Rammen des gegnerischen Schiffes noch den feindlichen Kapitän in einer kleinen Actionssequenz via Säbel, Degen oder Rapier besiegen. Darüber hinaus wollen Städte geplündert, Schätze gefunden und die eigenen Sippenmitglieder befreit werden.

Im weiteren Verlauf darf man auch Diplomatie betreiben, sich mit bösartigen Piratenjägern herumärgern - und über all dem möglichst die Laune der Mannschaft nicht aus den Augen verlieren. Wer es gerne übersichtlich hat, kann schließlich auch in sechs vorgegebenen Szenarien den Spuren berühmter Freibeuter wie z.B. Sir Francis Drake folgen.

Nach dem etwas enttäuschenden PC- und Mega Drive-Versionen hat MicroProse hier ganze Arbeit geleistet, und auch die Detailarbeit nicht vernachlässigt. Die völlig neu gezeichnete und liebevoll animierte Grafik sieht sehr hübsch aus, die Steuerung wurde optimal an das Joypad angepaßt, und der Soundtrack ist schlichtweg bombastisch.

Alle 25 Musikstücke kommen direkt von der CD, wobei das stilistische Spektrum vom hymnisch aufspielenden Symphonieorchester bis auf dem Techno-Mix von "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?" reicht. Eine jederzeit aufrufbare Übersichtskarte erleichtert die Orientierung ungemein, und die Zeitrafferoption läßt elend lange Segeltouren auf ein erträgliches Maß schrumpfen. Dazu darf man komplett in Deutsch entern und die Spielstände abspeichern.

Somit kommen CD32 Besitzer in den Genuß einer wahrhaft goldigen Ausführung dieses Klassikers, der endlich in vollem Umfanf die Präsentation und Atmosphäre bieten kann, welche eigentlich schon die DOSen- und Sega-Piraten erwartet hätten.

Man kann daher nur jedem Seebären raten, bei dieser Version anzuheuern - selbst wenn man den Vorgänger bereits kennt, wartet hier ein völlig neues Freibeutersgefühl! (mic)


Pirates! Gold logo CD32

Can we resist saying something stupid like 'ahoy mateys'? No, thought not.

So, it's Elite time again, is it? It seems that a couple of times every year, someone somewhere releases a game that's David Braben's original BBC Micro classic in every single way except the setting, and this year's no different.

Pirates! Gold is a game that's actually been around for years in one form or another (the original, distinctly similar, Pirates came out on budget from Kixx not long ago), but the formula is older than time itself, practically.

You travel around between a large number of locations (this time ports in the Atlantic), you trade various items between towns, you can pirate other traders' ships and steal their goods, you can perform all sorts of missions (carry messages, rescue hostages, so on and so forth), and your ultimate aim is to move up a ranking system by earning cash and doing daring needs. Elite, in other words.

Otherwise, you can probably pretty much guess what's going on in this one for yourself. You start off with a ship and a few gold pieces, and you have to recruit a crew and decide on your strategy. You can be a respectable businessman or a ruthless pirate, or you can combine the two by buying 'Letters Of Marque' from one of the four national powers represented in the game (England, France, Holland and Spain), which basically allow you to do pretty much anything you like without any come back.

Like Elite, being a pirate brings problems of its own (many traders will refuse to trade with you, and you may be fired on when you try to enter ports), but essentially you won't get anywhere fast by playing the good guy.

BLACK HEART
One way or another you're going to have to get blood on your hands, and this is one of the game's main drawbacks - for a game where fighting is so important (perhaps too important - you can sometimes win a battle when you're outnumbered 20 to 1 simply by overcoming the enemy leader in a swordfight), the fighting sequences are the weakest bits of all.

There are three basic types, a one-on-one battle with an opposing captain/guard/whatever, a naval tussle between war ships (obviously), and a strategy-ish bit where you attack a town by land, using your entire crew.

The latter two usually lead directly the one-on-one swordfight anyway, though, so you'll see plenty of that whatever happens. Unfortunately. Check out the box opposite for the full low-down on all the styles of conflict, but take it from me, they let things down somewhat.

Being a pirate brings problems of its own

STORMY
The other thing that knocks a big hole in this actually-rather-nice offering is the sailing realism. Your crew always travels at the speed of the slowest ship (you build up a fleet throughout the game by capturing other vessels - you can't just buy them, which is another reason you don't get anywhere without fighting), and because they're sailing ships, you're at the mercy of the wind.

Try to sail a fleet of warships across the width of the game map (as you must sometimes do) with the wind against you and you'll be stuck looking at a tiny sprite against a background of plain blue for anything up to 10 minutes at a time.

There's no speed-up-time facility (well, you can fiddle with your sails but to pretty minimal effect), you can't just set your course and go for a cup of tea,you actually have to sit there doing it and it's unbelievably, astoundingly, knuckle-chewingly, boring. This, finally, was the thing that made me give the game up in disgust after a pretty thoroughly gripped weekend, and if something had been done about it we'd have been looking at at least 10% on the final score.

PAST, TENSE
If you can't be bothered going to all the trouble of building an impressive career for yourself, though, there's an alternative. The game comes with half-a-dozen historical preset scenarios, a bit like the ones you get in Sim City.

Here you can put yourself in the boots of one of a number of real-life pirates and see if you can make a better job of their various situations than they did themselves, which is both an interesting diversion and a good idea if you just want to play a relatively short and snappy game with an obvious finishing point, rather than the open-ended empire-building of the main format. Even that, though, can be played in one of six different time periods, each of which hold their own different opportunities and dangers.

Rescue kidnapped members of your family

HAR, HAR, HAR
These options, along with the different ways in which you can approach the game (do you go for a small party of fast ships, picking off juicy fat targets and pillaging every port you enter, or amass a massive and powerful armada of slow-moving but heavily-armed war galleons and simply steamroller all opposition, sailing the seas with holds rammed with gold, but risking discontent and mutiny amongst your crew? Do you serve our chosen government faithfully and become a respected captain, or attack anything that moves and earn a fearsome reputation, but have to always be watching your back for pirate-hunters after the fat bounty on your head?) is what makes Pirates! Gold so engrossing.

COME CLOSER
There is more to Pirates! Gold than this - you have to charm the daughters of island governors in search of a wife (to improve your social standing), rescue kidnapped members of your family by retrieving jigsaw pieces of maps from vanquished foes, keep your crew happy by regularly dividing up your spoils, search for buried treasure, all the usual piratey kinds of thing - but essentially it's a pretty simple framework inside which you'll never find yourself short of something to do.

It's hard to put down once you're into it, but a few of those long journeys of seeing an hour's hard work go down the drain because you forgot to save and then arbitrarily lost a swordfight, will soon have you swearing never to load it again. Shame.


THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO FIGHT A PIRATE

Pirates! Gold FENCING: Street Fighter 2 this isn't. You get three attacking moves and a block, and control response is so delayed that your only hope of success is to hammer away at the attack buttons and jiggle the joypad in random directions and hope for the best. You can improve your chances by selecting 'swordfighting ability' from a list of special characteristics at the start of the game, and you can choose different swords, but otherwise it's pretty much hit-and-hope stuff of the easiest kind.

Pirates! Gold NAVAL COMBAT: This is more interesting, but sadly also incredibly slow-moving. You have to manouevre your ship around to bring your side-mounted cannons to bear on your opponent, and either batter them into submission with cannonballs or ram them and launch a boarding party (which basically takes you to be fencing section). The problem is that if you're commanding a slowish ship it can take you all afternoon to get within firing range, especially if the enemy's not keen to engage. Realistic? Almost certainly. Tedious as hell? You betcha.

Pirates! Gold LAND BATTLE: I've tried this a dozen times, studying the manual ever-closer every time, and I still find it mostly incomprehensible. Your forces are divided into two, with control switching between them for increased strategic potential, but the best strategy seems to be to charge straight at your target and attempt to plough through the opposition before they can overwhelm you with their (usually) superior numbers. Succeed, and you're back to the hand-to-hand bit again anyway, hurrah.

YOUR COMPLETE A-Z OF ANYPORT, CARIBBEAN

Every port you visit looks the same, and has the same things in it. It's a bit like McDonalds, really.
Pirates! Gold Pirates! Gold
  1. The governer's mansion is where you'll be offered Letters of Marque, errands or missions to perform, rewards for captured enemies and so on. It's also where you'll get the chance to meet lots of babes, who can try out your pirate charm on, with varying results.
  2. The only reason for going here is to divide up your plunder. You have to do this fairly regularly, or the crew gets terribly disgruntled and leaves. When you divide up, all your ships except one are sold, all your goods are sold, and all your crew disappear with their ill-gotten gains, so you have to start recruting and plundering all over again. You do get to increas your personal fortune, though, and you get the chance to move up a difficulty level, where both the risks and the rewards are greater.
  3. This is where all the real action happens - you recruit crew here, catch up on all the latest gossip, buy bits of treasury maps from drunken old sea-dogs, and find all manner of low-life who you can challenge to hand-to-hand combat in order to extract rewards or information from them. Just like my local.
  4. Buy and sell goods here. Beware, though, if you develop too bad a reputation, the merchant may refuse to trade with you. And if you can't buy food to keep your crew fed, you'll run into trouble sooner or later.
  5. Go here to repair any of your vessels damaged in battle, or sell any surplus ships for ready cash.

Pirates! Gold logo CD32

MICROPROSE OUT NOW £25.99

Right from the start you're on your own. There are plenty of careers to embark on, from out and out brigandry to attacking outposts and innocent towns. This freedom to basically do what you want is the game's strongest feature. You're not constrained by plots so you're free to progress, by bigger ships and hire bigger crews.

Before you take to the seas with your crew of salty sailors you need to pay a visit to the docks. This isn't as suspicious as it first seems. Here you can buy an amnesty from the king, who'll promise he won't send out any more fleets to sink you, or sign up as a privateer a part time member of his fleet.

One-on-one combat forms an integral part of the game, unfortunately it's not very good. When you've selected your weapon, rapier, sword, cutless, but no guns, you're treated to what at first seems to be a graphically excellent combat section. That is until the characters start moving, at which point the ludicrously unconvincing animation ruins any sense of realism, as does the gameplay which requires you to stab your foe at least five times to kill him.

On a larger scale, no matter how cautious you are, you'll always end up in a navel conflict. Here you get a top-down view of the combat area which contains tiny graphics of the ships. Looking at this, and the fact that the game's on CD so there's not memory problems, I can't help but think more could have been done here.

Pirates Gold is a nice concept with plenty of good ideas. Unfortunately it doesn't deliver the goods.