A better than expected port to the PSP.
Your placed in the role of a young european, as a child your family was kidnapped and enslaved by evil Spanish nobleman, Marquis de Montalban. Years later, after aquiring a boat and a crew, you set out to find your family and right the past wrongs. Outside of this tidbit, the game is completely open ended. While finding your lost family is one of the most important quests, your main goal is to become one of the most famous (or infamous) Pirates in the sea.
This game really acts as a Pirate simulator. You can go through towns and recruit more pirates to your crew, capture ships, or even wage wore on different towns. You have to ensure that your crew Morale stays high or risk a mutiny. Set in the early 1600's you can ally yourself with any of the four European countries available, The British, The French, The Dutch, or the Spanish. This leads to one of the most important aspects of the game, everyone of your actions has a postive or negative effect in the long run. By completing goals for one of the countries, your rank as a military official increases. By doing so however, you run the risk of making yourself an enemy of the rival countries. You can also turn to completely rogue and attack any town you feel like.
One of the most appealing aspects of this game is it really is just a big minigame. The simplest things such as sailing, dancing with the govenors daughter, breaking out of prison will lead to new and unique miny games.
At the end of the day, playing Sid Meier's Pirates turned out to be quite the fun experience. And it's a must buy for anyone who's looking for an open ended game for the PSP.