Pirates! - Retrospective Review @ Indie Retro News

Indie Retro News looks back at one of the best games ever made: Prirates!

Pirates! - DarkwyndPT's BIGGEST retro gaming review yet!

Ahoy there mateys! Welcome back to Retro Freak Reviews. And before ye all send me down to Davy Jones’ locker for not posting a review during the entire summer, let me redeem my sinner soul by offering ye this fine review in this finest of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I’m talking about Pirates! (the game, not in general…)

Pirates! (aka Sid Meier’s Pirates!) is an action-strategy game made by Microprose and originally released in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Commodore 64 and the PC Booter. It was re-released the following year for the Apple IIgs and the Macintosh. In 1989, it was again re-released for the Atari ST, PC-89 and the PC-98. In 1990, it was ported for the Amiga, in 1991, it was ported to the NES and in 1994, the PC Booter version was officially ported to DOS (earlier DOS versions were actually the PC Booter version modified and/or hacked to play on DOS).

Pirates! came to be when famous game designer Sid Meier along with fellow designer Arnold Hendrick wanted to make a roleplaying adventure game but Bill Stealey, Microprose’s co-founder, was skeptical because Microprose was only known back then by their vehicle simulations. Still, Meier and Hendrick were able to convince Stealey to take a chance at different genres and inspired by pirate novels, they created Pirates!

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