Introduction

Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas, is not Pirates II, but until Sid Meier finishes his long-promised update, this is perhaps the best pirate game any Long John Silver-wannabe has seen since that classic fired its first broadside on the Commodore 64 in 1987. To me, Cutthroats is not in itself a great game; it has some problems. Patch 6.0 is already on the net – and they are working on a seventh patch. Still, for those gamers who have heard of but never played Pirates!, or who have waited thirteen years for something new and better, their ship is in the harbor.

This comparison with Sid Meier’s classic is inevitable, as the designers at Hothouse Creations in Bristol, England freely and proudly admit. Their game, brought to the marketplace by Eidos Interactive, is an attempt to cover the same bloody shores of the Spanish Main that Meier sailed thirteen years ago. They have left out the desperate semi-arcade, Saturday matinee swordfight sequence that livened up Meier’s game, but have brought much more detail to the combats on both sea and land. There is more to see, more to explore, more to do and more people to talk to in this game, but then again these guys have Pentiums, CD-ROM’s and 250 MB of hard-drive space to do it in (while Meier had to cram it all onto a floppy that a C-64 could read).

The boys from Bristol put a lot of hard work into this game, and most of it shows. They did not confine their research to the shallow, superficial coffee-table books and swashbuckling "ar-har, matey" movies, but went deeper into the history of the Caribbean and the pirates who ravaged it for nearly 200 years. Everything that a gamer expects to find in a pirate game is here, from firing broadsides and launching boarding parties to raiding towns and burying (and searching for) buried treasure. The story line is familiar and simple enough: a gamer starts with a small ship and a few crewmen, and the player’s only fixed goals are to make money and live long enough to retire. The player gains wealth and fame from victories – which make governors and captains tremble before his demands – and infamy from, well, infamous acts (like slaughtering captives, burning towns) – which make him an unsavory, hunted and thoroughly detestable – yet more victorious – character.

There are some options at start as to the year in which the game will begin and the initial allegiance of the player’s captain. This allegiance would appear to be crucial if a player wants to be a trader or a privateer, but in the long run the game will force a player into piracy.

For example, a player can try to become a trader and sail back and forth buying and selling commodities, but such a pacific career will be interrupted by hostile ships. The player is in effect forced to become a pirate, whether he wants to or not – but then again, why would anyone buy a game like this if they did not want to be a pirate? As to the type of pirate the player can be, the game supposedly offers the option of becoming a true criminal freebooter or a slightly more respectable privateer. The latter, unfortunately, requires that the player receive a letter of marque from a governor. Again, unfortunately, the governors do not just hand these out to anybody – they only give them to captains who have earned a reputation as, you guessed it, a pirate. That reputation is enhanced by acts of villainy (for which the player earns an infamy rating). Thus, to have a chance at becoming an honorable, respectable privateer, the player must first be a villainous buzzard who preys on the helpless – and then makes them scream on the torture screens. There is a whole chapter on the level of infamy the player can attain, and how best to do it.

Thus, again, the player is forced down the satanic path. The player can try to become a "reformed pirate" (i.e. a privateer), but as wars end, letters of marque are withdrawn and governors change, the player will be forced back down the path to the dark side as warships are sent to hunt down the privateer. It is very, very hard to become a Henry Morgan in a game that rewards players for acting like Blackbeard. "Acting" is a key word here. The game is a lot more Hollywood than History. Some of the sailing routines feel right, but the emphasis is more on starring in a pirate movie than in recreating the life of a pirate. Simulation is simplified, but not stupefied.

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