Bad Blogger, Great Pirate

Yes, I know, I've been a bad blogger - no posts in over a week and no comments on other people's blogs either. Bad blogger, bad bad.

Peter's in Iceland on a photography workshop, so you'd think I'd have loads of time to write and comment. But, as it turns out, not so much. This is because Peter left me a very kind parting gift - Sid Meier's Pirates! You can pronounce that however you want. Peter and I pronounce it Pie Rats (two distinct words) because of this cartoon.

You start the game as a young pirate, in charge of a single ship in the Caribbean of the 1600s. The game is extraordinarily open-ended. You can engage in sea battles, become a goods trader, have sword fights, woo governors'daughters, hunt for treasure, and search for long-lost relatives and secret Incan cities.

I played this for hours on end when it first came out and finally had to beg Peter to hide the disc from me. It's that addictive, for me at least. It didn't quite work the same magic on Peter. For me, it's like the comfort food of games - predictable, satisfying, and...well comforting.

Although you control where you go and which missions you undertake, the constituent parts of the game are fairly scripted and predictable. In sword fights in the back of the pub, you will always kick the baddie off the second story, do a fantastic leap down, and then the baddie's ultimate defeat comes from the barmaid smashing a bottle on his head. The repetition bored Peter but I find it comforting even though it does sometimes feel like I'm a rat pressing levers to get treats.

I was going to write more, but the High Seas are callling...