Sid Meier's Pirates!

Sid Meier's Pirates! was released by MicroProse in 1987 for the Commodore 64. Before this game, MicroProse and Sid Meier were best known for their combat simulation games.

Pirates! is an open world game. You can roam from the coast of South America to the Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and all the way to Bermuda. You can be a privateer for the Spanish Empire, Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of England. or the French colonial empire. Or you can just be a pirate. There are a variety of things you can do from attacking enemy ships, to hunting pirates, to seeking buried treasure and more. You can even choose a peaceful route and simply engage in trade. There's no way to "win" the game per say. It continues indefinitely but as your character ages, it gets harder to recruit and fight. The game ends when you choose to retire.

Pirates! was truly a groundbreaking game. It was unique for its time and hugely influential for many games that came after. Games like Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Sword of the Samurai and countless others would never have been made if not for the success of Pirates!

Success on the Commodore 64 led to countless other ports. First to the Apple II in 1987, a little later to the IBM PC also in 1987, then to the Apple IIgs, Macintosh, and Amstrad CPC in 1988. The Atari ST version came along in 1989 followed by the Amiga version in 1990. Even the NES received a port in 1991. Then came the enhanced Pirates! Gold remake for Windows 3.1, DOS, Macintosh and the Sega Genesis in 1993 and even the Amiga CD32 in 1994. Another remake came along in 2004 for Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, Mac OS X, Wii and the PlayStation Portable. And it still hasn't ended. A portable version was released in 2008, for the BlackBerry in 2010, the iPad in 2011, and versions for the iPhone and iPod touch in 2012.

The easiest way to play Pirates! today is probably to get it on gog.com. However, I believe this is the newer 2004 release. There's nothing wrong with it and it does have better graphics but I definitely recommend that Commodore 64 fans check out that version if they have never played it. Otherwise, pick the version for your favorite system because they are all pretty great.

Images above are from the Commodore 64 version of the game.

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2016/09/26/sid-meiers-pirates/