Long before Pirates of the Caribbean tapped into our collective pirate souls, there was a little game called Sid Meier’s Pirates!. Originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64, the game was ported to eight different platforms over the ensuing four years. Before Pirates, the bulk of Meier’s games were flight simulators, so this was the first title that really tapped into the Meier-simulation sweet spot. The game put players in charge of a privateer on the high seas of the Caribbean as he captured raided and pillages–as pirates are wont to do. It opened a whole new world to gamers.
Pirates possessed no narrative to speak of. The player could choose to seek out buried treasure, plunder ships, or simply accumulate wealth through a canny understanding of the good market. In addition, the game had no ending in a traditional sense, just as a the life of a pirate–barring death–doesn’t have a neat conclusion. Eventually, as the player’s character gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to recruit crew members until, old and scarred, the player is forced into retirement. Whether that retirement consists of begging for alms or being an adviser to the king depends on how much wealth the player accumulated over the course of his ill-fated journey.
Premiering in 1993 for the Genesis, Pirates! Gold took all of the best attributes of the original game and added complexity to create one of the greatest and most commonly overlooked simulation of its kind.
It begins by allowing the player to choose a special skill: fencing, navigation, gunnery, wit and charm, or medicine. This small choice shapes the game for the player. If he has chosen to be a master of gunnery, he is far less likely in to close with another ship and engage the enemy captain in melee combat. Instead, he’s likely to tack and adjust his ship based on the wind trying to minimize the amount of his ship that is exposed to the enemy as he fires volleys of cannons at his opponent. And if he chose a player with enhanced fencing skills, he’s far more likely to simply close with the enemy ship as fast as possible–likely with a smaller, more maneuverable ship–and duel the enemy captain.
Another differentiator, and this was the primary reason I fell head over heels for the game years ago, is that the player is confronted with a choice between different eras to play in:
1560 – The Silver Empire
1600 – Merchants and Smugglers
1620 – The New Colonists
1640 – War for Profit
1660 – The Buccaneer Heroes
1680 – Pirate’s Sunset
The main difference between each of these periods are the factions the player is able to play and which factions possess the most ports. In the Silver Empire, the Spanish colonies are at their most powerful, and they are flush with silver. If a player wants a real challenge, he can choose to play as a Spanish Renegade and slowly build up his reputation with the French until they offer him a letter of marque. Each era provides a different flavor of encounters. Or he can try to one up Sir Francis Drake and take San Juan. The game is that open.
In addition to money, the player also tries to build up his prestige (largely a function of how much money he has earned) to earn the right to woo one of the daughters of the governors of the ports. It might be misogynistic, but the prettier the wife, the greater the reputation of the player.
Unlike its predecessor, Pirates! Gold has the barest semblance of a plot. In addition to the usual marauding, the player is trying to seek out all four missing members of his family, each of whom has a piece of a map to the greatest score in the game: Incan gold. And this is where the game really becomes a classic.
If the game only had other ships to attack and fleets to manage, it would be a solid, serviceable step in gaming. But the fact that it has small touchstones of pirate lore in the game give the game a sense of authenticity. Of course, all pirate games are idealized, but Pirates! Gold manages to make the player feel enmeshed in that idealization. The player may slowly age and become less agile and adept, but over the years, he can capture the Spanish treasure fleet and the silver train and uncover Incan gold.
When I first rented the game, I played the game through at least five pirate lives before I put down the gamepad. I became so invested in the achievements of that pirate, far more invested than I ever became with any of my stats in Final Fantasy games, that I absolutely had to keep trying for one last big score to fame and the love of the prettiest woman in all of the Caribbean.
Since 1993, the game has been updated with a fairly well-reviewed PC game that has just recently been ported over to Xbox Live Arcade. I think it might be time to get out my old peg-leg and fake parrot and download some nostalgia.