pirates posts

Capcom released a playable demo for Age of Booty, "a casual, real-time pirate-themed multiplayer strategy game that puts you at the helm of your own pirate ship with the goal of sending your enemies to the briny deep, and looting/capturing towns for your pirate faction." The full game can be purchased for $10.

Download the Age of Booty Demo (103 MB)

Guinness World Records has recognized game designer Sid Meier -- the man behind Civilization, Alpha Centauri, Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon/Railroads, and other games.

Meier's claim to fame: he's officially won more awards than any other game creator. In addition to the countless awards received for games like Civilization IV, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2008 Developers' Choice Awards and has been inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame, and the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame. He also received a star on the Walk of Game.

Despite his long history of PC game development, his next project -- Civilization Revolution -- is a console-only affair. No word yet on what his next PC project will be, unfortunately.

Late last year, Interplay and GameTap broke up. All of GameTap's friends were sad to see it happen, because they really liked Interplay and didn't want to see it go. No one knew exactly what caused the relationship to go sour; who can say what happened behind closed doors? It's been a sad six months; GameTap has been eating a lot of chocolate while watching old movies alone until 2 AM. Not good!

But now something wonderful has happened; Interplay and GameTap are getting back together! Interplay is bringing 14 of its best games with it, including the entire Descent, Freespace, and Earthworm Jim series. Take-Two is tossing in a few titles of its own to celebrate -- Civilization IV, Sid Meier's Pirates!, and Civ IV's Warlords expansion. Not bad!

The new titles unfortunately won't be available until June. In the meantime, though, two less prestigious (but not necessarily less fun) titles have been added to the library: submarine sim Dangerous Waters and action RPG The Chosen. Not ... eh, we could go either way with those.

[Via Joystiq]

Roy Taylor, NVIDIA games' boss, thinks it time PC pirates packed up and shoved off. In fact, he's calling them out as the the single biggest threat to the demise of PC gaming. We couldn't agree more.

Taylor launched into well stated and much needed diatribe on the costly behavior these bottom feeding scum are causing the very industry they purportedly love. "One of the things that I find frustrating is that PC gamers tend to be very passionate, and they love the people that make great PC games." Taylor listed game designers such as John Carmack, Tim Sweeney and Ken Levine... all revered as "heroes" by gamers. Yet "... many of them, sadly, will go and steal from them. I just don't get that, I really don't."