  Boggle me barnicles! 'Pirates!' is off the hook.
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Playing a strategy game on a console instead of a PC is kind of like trying to type with hockey gloves on. It can be done, but it just doesn't feel right, and the results are usually a bit of a mess.
Now, of course, I have to satisfy my own curiosity by trying it. The typing with the hockey gloves, I mean. Here goes: TYjhe qiickl bnropwen folx jump[s ov ere thew l;sazyu dsogf.
Yep, that looks like crap. But Sid Meier's Pirates! makes the jump from PC to Xbox with the deftness and grace of a swashbuckler vaulting onto the deck of a ship. Unless the deck has been freshly swabbed, in which case he might slip and fall on his butt. And all the other pirates will laugh at him. Poor swashbuckler.
Pirates! is actually the perfect kind of strategy game to make the transition from PC to console because it doesn't require a lot of quick mouse movements like some of game guru Sid Meier's other classics (eg. Civilization), and it's relatively action-oriented. In fact, things like duelling and ship-to-ship combat seem to work a little better with a gamepad versus a keyboard.
For those who haven't played this addictive-as-rum-soaked-crack title on the PC, Pirates! puts you in the salt-stained boots of a young captain whose family was abducted a decade earlier by the moustache-twirling Marquis de la Montalban - no relation to Ricardo, we think, because they sure as heck weren't taken to Fantasy Island.
But whether or not you hunt down clues to your kin's whereabouts is up to you. Pirates! is completely open-ended, basically turning you loose to sail from port to port trading goods, attacking and plundering ships, wooing governor's daughters, recruiting crew members in taverns, collecting pieces of treasure maps, laying siege to towns and so on. You can play as a benevolent merchant making an honest buck by plying the trade routes, or you can raise the skull and crossbones on your mast and engage every ship you see, sinking them and stealing their cargo or duelling their captains for control of the vessel.
The game's mechanics are really simple, but because there's so much to do, it's easy to get sucked in for hours at a time. There's always one more piece of a treasure map to uncover, or one more bounty to undertake, or one more governor's daughter to dance with. (Granted it's kind of fruity for a scurvy pirate to be mincing around ballrooms in lacey finery, but it's a good way of winning favour with governments and collecting valuable items.)
The always enjoyable ship-to-ship combat will likely take up a large chunk of your time, but even little things like the simple turn-based wargame you play when pillaging towns is well-thought-out and fun. In fact, only the dancing is a bit of a pain in the butt - make it a priority to quickly find or buy better boots so you're not constantly tripping over your feet and embarrassing yourself in front of the governors' daughters.
There's no pressing need to play the Xbox version of Pirates! if you've already sailed the seven seas on your PC, but there are a handful of worthwhile extras here, like downloadable content via Xbox Live and an arcadey multiplayer ship combat mode. A few other tweaks have been made to the gameplay, like the option to take on crews that greatly outnumber yours and still emerge victorious, if you can successfully complete a pre-duel mini-game and then vanquish the enemy captain with your sword.
While these G-rated pirates make even Capt. Jack Sparrow look like a hardcore badass, our man Sid Meier knows how to design a game that gets under your skin and won't let go, until it's 3 a.m. and you realize you have to be up for work in a few hours. Arrrr!
BOTTOMLINE:
This faithful port - no pun intended - of the seafaring PC game shines just as brightly on the big black box. Beware the siren call of its addictiveness, though.
