Excuse Me, I Take Exception To That Barnes!!!

Those who follow the only real boardgaming award worth following will no doubt realize that Barnes was awarded The Platinum Pawn for Game Reviewer of the Year, mainly for his review of "Android" and that topic was recently showboated by Barnes in another thread.

Does this imply that Barnes always gets it right? NO!!!

One of the biggest mistakes Barnes has ever made was his review of Days of Wonder's "Pirate's Cove"



There is no doubt to any real gamer that "Pirate's Cove" is a leading contender for best Pirate game. I would rank "Pirate's Cove" and ""Rum and Pirates" neck and neck as the best pirate games on the market.

Let's look at where our reviewer of the year went wrong.

Barnes talks about a "pasted on theme" and "boring rules". The classic Knizia cliche of the pasted on theme does not apply at all for "Pirates Cove"

The rules themselves are brilliant, especially the "Mutiny" rule.

Barnes contradicts himself badly by saying its hard not to get into the Pirate theme but then says the game is boring. I don't know about you guys but when I am into a game's theme I am having a good time.

You could say this about a lot of games. Let's look at "Cash N Guns". The mechanics include playing a card and pointing a foam gun. That is boring. But the theme of the game and the actual play are great! The same can be said about "Pirate's Cove"

Barnes goes on to say that best strategy is to avoid fighting. I have heard this stated in other places as well , but it is obvious to me that they haven't played the game enough because the there are HUGE variables at play based on the cards that show up during the game, especially the Parrot cards.

Barnes in general rails against Days of Wonder Games and it really seems like a game company bias creeps into his reviews at times. I really wish a game reviewer would take the company out of the equation and just focus on the game. It would make for a better review.

Barnes ends his comments on "Pirate's Cove" with a simple question:

"Pretty vacant?"

Which I and and millions of other gamers would answer NO!!!!!!!!!

The game is Ameritrash to the core and short Ameritrash to boot, great pirate action, dice rolling, strategic planning, with all the flavor of what a Pirate game should be.

Which I and and millions of other gamers would answer NO!!!!!!!!!

Uh...Steve...there aren't millions of other gamers IN THE WORLD. At least not hobby-focused board gamers.

PIRATE'S COVE is indeed, pretty vacant. It's a bunch of bells and whistles gussied up with cute pirate art without much interesting to do or say in it. When I say it had a "pasted on theme" (did I really- how embarassing), I think what I was reacting to was the fact that the game doesn't feel very piratey when you actually play it. It looks piratey enough, sure. But I never once felt like the game could be nothing but a pirate game. In sum- high executive theme, low conceptual theme. It could be about medieval merchants going from stall to stall and it'd be the same game.

I haven't played it in like four or five years...the last time I played it was the second time I played it with the DoW set but probably the fourth or fifth time I played it, having owned PIRATENBUCHT. I gave it plenty of chances to impress me, and every time I played it I just thought it was really, really dumb and very shallow in a bad way.

As for DoW, no, I don't like most of their games. Two of the absolute worst games I've played in recent years have been DoW games (COLLESSEUM, CLEOPATRA), the M44 series is fine but I'm not interested in it anymore, the TICKET TO RIDE stuff I have zero interest in, and most of their other products I find have EXTREMELY limited replay value and I think they are the absolute epitome of style over substance. SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT was good for three plays until you realized that you were bamboozled into buying a glorified rummy game. There's a major publisher that turned down SoC specifically because it was too shallow. Funny enough, when I get around to doing a review of SMALL WORLD it's going to get a better write-up then you might have expected. I still hate the art and the cutey-poo bullshit they insist on, but it's a decent game. Not a great one, but it's decent enough.

Finally, the other factor in all this is that I really, really don't like pirate-themed games. In fact, I kind of hate them in general and if a game is coming out with a pirate theme I'm almost never interested in it at all. Van Overbay's SEA ROVERS was the one that I've played that I actually really liked other than the original BLACKBEARD. PLUNDER was OK too, but it had so many bugs and fairly sloppy design. New BLACKBEARD...oy vey. I can't believe folks actually liked that.

Then there was LORDS OF THE SPANISH MAIN...Sierra Madre...it may be good, but it's one of those that no one is ever willing to play, and the one time I got people to sit down for it the game completely tanked.

There's a major publisher that turned down SoC specifically because it was too shallow. Funny enough, when I get around to doing a review of SMALL WORLD it's going to get a better write-up then you might have expected. I still hate the art and the cutey-poo bullshit they insist on, but it's a decent game. Not a great one, but it's decent enough.

I agree that the whole "silly fantasy" thing is really starting to wear out its welcome, but for crissakes, man, it's a kids game. What do you want?

I remember the Commodore rules helping make Plunder more fun.

Anyone try the GMT Winds of Plunder game (I know you are competing for VPs, but it is by GMT) or Merchants & Marauders (which I gather is being re-released as Age of Piracy)?

I don't know, my favorite pirate game is, and probably always will be Broadsides & Boarding Parties. I know there's no plundering, pillaging, or any other such skullduggery, but it does a pretty good job with what it sets out to do. That's recreate those man-the-cannons ship battles from the pirate movies. Not to mention, it took the pre-programmed turn concept from complex games like SFB and Gunslinger, and put it into something accessible to everyone. So the next time you play Starcraft, maybe you should give a little thanks to B&BP.

Plus, it's got big friggin' plastic pirate ships.

Isn't Winds of Plunder the one where you bid for which direction the wind blows?

I'll agree with Barnes about Pirate's Cove (a whole lotta meh) and Colloseum, but I actually liked Cleopatra the two times I played it... I think it has some clever aspects to it.

I'm holding out hope for Merchants & Marauders to be the great pirate game.

Pirate's Cove is a family game, not a "game night" game. My family likes it (except for my wife), but we alter the rules so the Pirate Ship goes to a random island each turn -- which, while simple, really adds some suspense and fun to the game. And of course, we're Pirates so we always fight.

I liked the AH games Nexus Ops, Monsters Ravage America, etc. around the time Swords & Skull came out ... but never got a chance to play it. How was that for a pirate game?

BTW, Pirate King is a pretty decent pirate/race game.

Uba -- thanks for the response. It sounds like I am glad that I didn't play it and now I can go about happily ignoring/avoiding it.

I'll stick to Pirate King with my game group, Blackbeard for solo play, and Pirate's Cove for the family. A win, win, win.

I wouldn't mind picking up a copy of Pirate's Cove if I can find a cheap copy. I have this pegged as a "family game" rather than "hobby game", but I have a young family so it should go down just fine. But it seems way overpriced for what it is.

I recently saw many copies of Sword & Skull going for a song at the local toystore, but have never read anything good about it, so ignored the compulsion to buy it just because it was cheap.

I am still interested in picking up Pirate King at some point, but Flaster was having a few problems finding a local carrier to pick it up. I'll have to check again to see if anything has changed.

the problem with pirate games is that they are most often playing by chicken hat wearing guys making ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR jokes and thinking it's the funniest thing ever.

Death and Taxis wrote:

I wouldn't mind picking up a copy of Pirate's Cove if I can find a cheap copy. I have this pegged as a "family game" rather than "hobby game", but I have a young family so it should go down just fine. But it seems way overpriced for what it is.

Arrggghhh - if this had been posted two months ago I could have brought my copy with me on my trip back home and gently fleeced you for it. I wasn't too far away for a couple of days - staying with my sister in Wgtn and visiting my cousin and family on a farm at Waikanae.

Next time. And yes - I know, we could have organised a game session ....

Pirate's Cove is mostly a reworking of Adel Verplichtet or Das Goldritter. It is structured around choosing locations to go to then taking resources at those spots. Very Euro--or at least pre-Euro.

I'm mostly done with the "win by choosing what your opponents don't choose games." Pirates' Cove it at least a decent design.

Sword and Skull is worth picking up. I suspect the backlash is that it is a roll and move, and takes a little too long. It does take a little too long, but it is a VERY good roll and move. It is structured around binary decisions, and the decisions are often both appealing.
IT also does feel reasonably piratey, although not so much as Pirate King.

Sword and Skull got shit on when it came out by the same people who shit on Talisman. It's not really in the same league, but it's far from being terrible and we've all had fun with it on the occasions it comes out. Like Frank said, it's a silly roll and move with decisions to be made and you just cruise around being piratey.

I'm really happy I picked one up when they were blowing out all those AH/Hasbro titles for $10-15 and would heartily recommend that anyone else do the same if you see one, but I'd have been bummed if I got it for original retail of $45-50.