In order to write this entry I have to go back in time, somewhere back in summer of 1988 …
Althought I was “proud owner” of C64 with floppy disk drive (1541-II) I remember having hard time getting games for it. I didn ‘t know anyone close to me having C64 with FDD, so the only one way to get games for it was to either go to Belgrade (too expensive), or to order games by phone and wait several weeks to get them (meanwhile looking at crystall ball whether Serbian postal service will bring it to me or keep it to themself).
Anyway, back at that time I was musician too (still dream to become rock star) so I had great luck to meet local guy who were musician too, but more importantly to me, he had C64 with FDD too. So one night when we played music together I took a chance and saved few fd’s with games from him. One among them was some game he highly reccommended to me.
Tomorrow I get to it on my computer and the rest is history. That summer I haven ‘t swim, I haven ‘t play keyboard, I haven ‘t play tenis. I played Pirates! Silver train, treausure fleat, buired treasure … even today I keep all icelands of Karibian seas somewhere in my head 🙂
Now back in present time. Few days ago by browsing daily diggest in elitesecurity forum I found message from some guy desperatelly trying to buy some game called “Sid Meier’s Pirates!”. I was curious if that game have something in common with pirates I played on C64, so I went on Amazon.com and start a search. Then I saw, yes this is it! This is remake of old classic game I spent hours (weeks, months …) by playing it. Suddenly I become desperate too, because it was impossible to get that game from Amazon (no way to order anything other than books or DVD’s to Serbia). I tried to purchase it from other sites, but without success. They (rest of the world) blame us for piracy but at the same time, they don’t allow us to regulary purchase anything from them ? We are pushed to piracy that way!
Anyway, I started limewire (p2p client) and got it from it (it took me more than a day to download about 900MB ). It was already late at night, so I burned CD’s and decided just to install the game without to play it. Then I said to my self, “OK, I am going to try it, just for 5 minutes, then I am going to sleep”. Six hours after I was still playing, although it was already morning.
What about new version of pirates ? Although they make it look far better it is mostly the same good old game whith the same goals etc. That ‘s good. Bad thing is, I no longer have hours and hours to play with it. Life is a bitch man 🙁
Anyway, for those of you reading this I found great article about this game at http://www.gamerhelp.com/pc/SidMeiersPirates/103060.shtml It describe differences, some strategies etc. So, if you have enough time go play with it.