Pirates! Gold
A 1993 enhanced remake of Sid Meier's classic pirate adventure.
Pirates! Gold is a 1993 update of Sid Meier's 1987 game, released by MicroProse. It adds Super VGA graphics, hand-painted screens, and 3D ship animations while keeping the original's pirate, privateer, or hunter roles and sword, sea, and land combat.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- MPS Labs
- Publisher
- MicroProse
- Designer
- Paul Murphy
- Programmer
- Randall Don Masteller
- Artist
- Michael Haire
- Composer
- Jeffery L. Briggs; Roland J. Rizzo
- Released
- 1993: MS-DOS, Genesis; 1994: Mac, Win 3.1, CD32
- Genre
- Action-adventure, strategy
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Pirates! Gold includes Super VGA graphics with hand-painted screens and a more detailed environment than the original. It adds 3-D modeled ship and flag animations and graphic depictions of items previously shown as menu choices. Players can choose to be a pirate, privateer, or pirate hunter. The game features sword fighting, ocean battles, and land battles, connected by role-playing elements such as courting local politicos, romancing women, and recruiting pirates in pubs. Players undertake quests and plan raiding and trading routes. Sea and sea-to-land combat are real-time, while land battles are turn-based. Sun sighting and special items are absent, but several new features are included.
Reception
Paul C. Schuytema for Compute! found the game positive and called it addicting. In 1993, Computer Gaming World described Pirates! Gold as adding three disks of graphical gold to a great game engine, stating it has much to offer a new player and comes with the highest of recommendations, but warned those familiar with the original that it was not a significantly revised game with fresh gameplay. James Trunzo in White Wolf #39 (1994) rated it Excellent, noting built-in replay value from the option to play in one of six historical periods or expeditions. In 1994, PC Gamer US ranked it the 39th best computer game ever, praising the gameplay of the original. In 2018, Complex placed it 26th among The 100 Best Sega Genesis Games. Microprose reported sales exceeding 450,000 copies by September 1997.
More in MicroProse Games of the 1990s
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