WarPig, I share your G-Man theory...it just seems to obvious to ignore. Someone screamed that here on the board awhile back, and since then I've found it hard to ignore.

As I'm not as close to finishing HL2 as I thought (whoever said the game was short must have been comparing it to Baldur's Gate 2!), I went ahead and installed Pirates.

First things first: I'm going to have to read that manual (@ 144 pages - small book (as the dvd edition comes in the same small box as the regular edition), but still very nice to explain things). I've managed to get 2 additional ships by fighting, and both times easily defeating the captain in a duel. It also seems to favor the number pad for movement, which might take a bit to get used to. But there's an easy guide in the lower right corner, outlining what each button does at a given time.

As far as the dvd edition, it weighs in a 2 and a half gig, and includes (in addition to the regular Pirates game):

23 pieces of concept art (jpg and tif)

73 jpgs of European Package art

18 jpgs of US Package art

Idle animations of key characters (9 avi files)

5 Designer Diarys in Word format

Pirates Gold (Windows 256 color original version)

Renders and Sketches (various jpg images)

The Making of Pirates - 10 minute movie in both AVI and MOV formats

US and UK preview movies

Wallpapers in 8, 10, and 12 resolution...

AND (most importantly):

Special Theme Pack - 20 meg of bonus material, including flags, sails, and a special file that "will change some of the characters you meet in the Pirate Havens".



Overall, the game seems very cool, so far (and a nice break from FPS, RTS, etc sort of games)...graphics are sharp, sound is good, and there seems to be a number of quests. Now I just have to learn what everything does!




http://tds.nin.com/