maybe this game can't amuse you more than 20-30hours, but that 20-30hours will be very very fun
The basic story is your family has been captured and you must uncover maps leading to their locations by defeating various villains.
Some of other goals include defeating all of the other pirates ranked ahead of you as you begin the game. Finding their treasure also helps with money and keeping morale up on your ship. You can also plunder towns, capture ships, and help the nations with certain things to assist them gain power over one another.
You get to upgrade your ships with rigging, sails, cannons, and types of cannon shot to make your fleet the best on the open water. You also can find special items to make your character better such as shirts that allow for better dueling, better swords, better guns, and hats.
One of the interesting features of the gameplay is you can romance the governor's daughter. You can give them gifts but the main way you can achieve the heart of these ladies is to dance their socks off. This is actually one of the more difficult things to do in the game. You have to have perfect timing, watch for the signs and eventually obtain some items to assist you in becoming a better dancer.
One of the more difficult aspects of this game, especially on the more difficult settings is keeping your crew happy. It takes a lot of money and staying busy plundering towns, capturing ships and stopping port. Eventually though you will have to divide the plunder and depending on your level you get your share. Then you start over with a minimal crew and begin a new recruiting more men, capturing more ships and keeping them happy.
The graphics in this game are really sweet. The crisp blue of the ocean waves as you steer your ship through trade lanes trying to find that one ship loaded with treasure. The ship details are nice and the character models and animations have a little cartoony feel to them, but overall are done very well.
The music is very well done. Depending on the port you are passing by whether Dutch, English, French or Spanish you get a different theme. The sound effects bring you into the game nicely with all kinds of sounds that make you feel as if you are the one swabbing the deck.
but after all, there is some problems in this game:
1) The game don't have a real storyline. You have the same kind of mini games over and over and over again. I just feel like the lack of objective and the lack of story kills it. Maybe If the family member had some dialogue that went with it that could help. the game suddenly is finished though you may didn't find all of your family (which is the main objective of game).
2) Duels don't have a sensible difficulty; I found it easy to defeat a pirate (even the rank#1), but defeat villains are very harder.
3) I just get tired of dancing with the same girls over and over to learn the same information.
4) One thing I really hated was not being able to pan out far enough to see where the hell you're sailing to and this make you saw the world map every minute!
5) I wish there could be a few more animations cut scenes when fighting thieves and scoundrels, or defeating other famous pirates. You only get a few and after beating a few you just get the same ones over and over.
Overall, this game blends a lot of features to make for a very fun and addictive game. "Sid Meier's Pirates!" is a game that will attract you fast and will addict you and you can't stop play it for a few days or a week(depends how much time you play in a day) but Then you'll leave it forever because its not one of those games that you like to play them again and again. but still I recommended this to everyone and I think this game definitely worth to try it once.