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> Results: Sid Meier's Pirates!
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What GamerDad says about the ESRB Content Descriptors:
Mild Violence: GamerDad had ship-to-ship and swashbuckling battles throughout, but nothing bloody or intense. GamerDad has covered Sid Meier's Pirates! for over two years now - in the 2004 PC release (review) that was awarded our "PC Game of the year", and in the 2005 XBOX version (review). Those games were new versions of the classic Sid Meiers's game of the 80's, and were amazingly every bit as good as the legendary game. Guess what? So is this one! You are given a basic motivation and quest - revenge! Also clearing your family name and collecting your fortune. You start in the Caribbean with a single ship and a commission from your country of choice - that gives you direction but the rest is up to you. You are quickly sailing along engaging ships you determine are enemies to build your personal fleet and resources as well as gain ranks and prestige with your nation's Governors. I was truly amazed at how well everything scaled - you lose some of the detail of the large-screen version but it has no impact on the smooth and fast-flowing gameplay. As for my three 'PSP pet peeves' of load times, controls and camera I am pleased to report that there are no egregious problems. The controls and camera both work very well, to the extent that you never feel like you are playing a scaled-back port of a bigger and better game (because you aren't!). Load times are a bit longer than on the PC, but never get in the way of feeling like this is a game to be played on-the-go. I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance approaching Sid Meier's Pirates! - here is a game that on the PC constantly threw new challenges and objectives at me and put me into that 'just one more something' state that seems to go along with all Sid Meier's games, yet it is perfectly satisfying to play for fifteen minutes at a time on the PSP. That is because events come and go quickly enough that you can just stop, save, and come back later. And you will want to come back again ... and again ... and again. Because this is a high quality game that is a great fit for the PSP and has lost none of its addictive qualities being downsized for the handheld.  
The ESRB seems to have no idea what to do with this game. The PC version was rated E with the descriptors "Alcohol Reference, Suggestive Themes, Violence", the XBOX version was rated T with the descriptor "Mild Violence", and now the PSP version is rated E-10+ with the same "Mild Violence" descriptor. This game is pretty much identical to the PC version in terms of content - you start off as a pirate and gain respect by sinking ships. There is romance but it is really a mini-game consisting of other mini-games such as dancing. You can get married, amass a huge fleet and fortune and trade various goods in ports throughout the colonial world of the 17th century Caribbean. It is all good clean fun that anyone in the family will enjoy - and everyone in my family likes this. It eschews many of the unsavory realities of the period - tobacco trade, slavery, drugs, and so on. The absence of those things does nothing to impact the solid gameplay, it just makes it easily accessible and acceptable for just about anyone who can read and handle a PSP.
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