Rating: 
Summary: Wish I Could Play Sea Dogs
Review: This game sounds very enjoyable. It would be nice if there were not so many system compatability issues. In fact, I never was able to get the game installed on my system, a system that does not contain any weird or off brand cards. My information technology team at work also attempted to help me load additional drivers, change system settings and basically reconfigure my machine, to no avail.No matter how good the game could be, it is not worth the trouble to install and attempt to set up
Rating: 
Summary: Slap on an eyepatch! Board'em in smoke!
Review: This is a worthy successor to Sid Meier's classic, Pirates! An entertaining, almost-great game which takes a "Hornblower-Bolitho lite" approach to the genre. GOOD + Enjoyable ship-to-ship combat; + Lovely 3D modeled ships and environments (great sunsets and storms); + Interesting onshore RPG interactions with NPCs; + A good variety of quests, missions and career paths (running errands for the English, French or Spanish, or full-bore pirating, capturing ships or forts, etc.); + The pleasure of developing step-by-step into a rich and successful pirate commanding an armored 90-gun man o'war. Yar! BAD OR UGLY - Relatively steep learning curve (stick with it!); - Rrather unrealistic sailing model (wind effects minimal); - Buggy (first patch is out, though); - An odd ahistorical gloss to late 17th century/early 18th century adventuring (O'Brian fans, you are warned!).
Rating:
Summary: Worst game ever - not just among pirate games
Review: This is literally the worst game that I have ever played of ANY genre. Comparing it to the original Pirates! by Sid Meier is very nearly an insult to that classic game. Simply put, this game has a terrible user interface, gameplay is difficult and BORING (gameplay refers to ship-to-ship combat, navigating through towns and swordfighting) and is incredibly BUGGY (as in constant crashing). Honestly, this is an insult for Bethesda to release to the gaming public in light of their other games (as in the Elder Scrolls series). Unfortunately, if a pirate game is what you are looking for, then this is about the only game out right now. I'd recommend, however, that you save your money and wait to get a game worth playing. Or at least a game thats FUN to play.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Sailing
Review: Very good grafics and playable interface make this a fun game. Based on a non-linear storyline, Sea Dogs offers the fun of exploring with enough action for the "Sid Meyer Pirates" fan. The beauty of the sails and translucent water is best with an advanced grafics card. Without it you may not see any sails and the ladies in town are sans their lower half. You may play as a pirate or merchant or both. Lots of fun without the cheats. Looking forward to Sea Dogs II.
Rating: 
Summary: "Officer join to you?" Oh well...
Review: Yes, the grammatical writing in this game is THAT bad. Yes, that is sadly typical of the writing. Does that mean you shouldn't get this game? No. Well, if you were a fan of Pirates!, anyway. If you are a buccaneer at heart this game is for you. The graphics are stunning, the gameplay both realistic and fun, the RPG elements great. Most of all, the piratical atmosphere is fantastic, even though it is set in a fantasy world rather than the historical Caribbean. I've been up for pretty much four days straight playing this game... The last game to do that to me was CivII. 'Nuff said. P.S. Oh... for you couch-pirates out there... LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR SAILS in this game. Battle sails are no joke.
Rating:
Summary: Everything You Could Want in a Pirate Game
Review: Yes, this game is not easy - although there are plenty of walkthroughs available on the web. Thanks to those who have played for a long time and made the effort to share their knowledge, you almost don't mind that the manufacturer never bothered to issue a player's guide.
Yes, it does require you to pay attention - the suggestion to use a notebook is quite a good one! There is so much going on and you visit so many places, talk with so many people and with lots of story lines to keep track of, a notebook would be a great asset.
Yes, the graphics are amazing! Especially for those of us with older computers. The detail is awesome and if you take advantage of the first person perspective, you'll feel as if you really are on a ship in the middle of (pick one) a battle, heavy weather, open seas, etc.
No, you won't finish it in one sitting - unless you don't get up for several days running.
Sea Dogs is one fine piece of work and one fine game.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: You have to get this game. That's all there is to it. Sea Dogs is a great free-form pirating game. You start, naturally enough, as a would-be buccaneer with a wimpy little ship and no idea what's going on. Never fear, that changes rapidly. You can roam towns in a 3-D third person view, talking to inhabitants, recruiting crewmembers in bars, collecting orders and quests from local governors, and generally having a great time. You can align with the British, the French, the Spanish, or be a rogue Pirate (Pirates are effectively a 4th country). The pirate lands are sort of neutral territory for all, and there you can buy letters of marque from agents of the other countries to fight one another. This is necessary because, for example, if you're allied with the British, you can collect quests and information from the British, but if you go to a Spanish town you tend to get blasted out of the water by coastal batteries. Yet often the bigger quests require you to visit the islands and towns of several different nations. But what is it, really, that we all want from a good seafaring game? Ocean battles.. and you get them here in spades. Beautiful graphics, highly detailed ships and combat effects, and even the ability to switch between steering your ship from afar like a racecar, or walking the deck and using a spyglass to view your enemies make this game totally amazing. The graphics are so good that I was shocked to learn that this game came out years ago. Holes appear in sails as chain kippels fly, waterspouts ring your ship from missed shots, planking flies in the air and badly damaged ships smoulder, masts blow completely off from critical hits, and cannons explode off the walls of fortresses as you engage them with explosive rounds. The weather effects are amazing..fight a running battle with spanish frigates in 20 knot winds and waves so high your ship nearly flounders, or hound your foes through fog so thick the first warning of contact comes from the creak of timbers as you run into their beam. Sinking ships go down with great fanfare and often leave a floating debris trail of cargo you can salvage, although if you want the big hauls, grapple your foe and go hand-to-hand on the quarterdeck to take the cargo and even the ship intact. Other great aspects: 1) RPG EXP system allows rewards for everything from sinking or boarding ships, persuading governors to give you new quests, recovering items, or even just hang out in bars and chatting. As your level increases, you are able to spend points on everything from improving your sailing skills and sword skills to learning how to duck incoming cannon fire. Hire unique NPCs like a First Mate or a Surgeon to augment your skills, although it will increase your crew costs (don't pay and suffer a mutiny or two). The higher a level you are, the better the ship you can command, although this is not as restrictive as it sounds; each class of ship has a half dozen to experiment with. Build your own fleet by hiring NPCs with their own vessels, and placing your First Mate aboard a captured war ship.. command them in battle by telling them to sink specific targets, board others, or follow you and provide covering fire. Complete quests to gain rank and esteem from your allied country, such as a Barony from the British, replete with a fancy new coat and breeches. 2) Great graphics, can't emphasize this enough. Occasional cutscenes add to the flair, such as when you and your mates invade a town with bloodied swords held high. 3) Merchandising. You don't even have to be a pirate or a naval officer, you can just run goods from town to town, taking advantage of local prices and preferences. Most folks will do some of this anyway to pay for repairs, upgrades, new ships, and crew, but you can make it your job and it's still fun. You can even sell captured ships for huge profit. A few other things that I've found helpful in playing the game: 1) The default difficulty is 'Hard'. You can change this in Options at the main screen. A lot of folks seem to have missed this, and get discouraged when they get blasted from the start. It also seems to cut down on the number of times you get attacked in general. 2) High wire act. There aren't a lot of do-overs in this game.{Anger} a governor once, chances are you won't win him back. So save a lot, and really pay attention to your dialogue choices because if you just say the wrong thing you might miss a quest permanently. For example, one quest was to destroy a fort and pillage a town. I destroyed the fort, but accidentally agreed to be paid off by the mayor after running amok, rather than claiming the island for Britain. This effectively 'broke' the quest, since whenever I returned to that town, it was already pillaged, yet I was not able to officially claim it or pillage it again. Also, occasionally things will get buggy with the letters of marque; at one point I was operating under a British letter of marque, yet the British were hostile to me, and the British agent in the pirate town was willing to sell me another. Yet at the same time the Spanish reacted as if I already had one. 3) You sail between islands on a world map, and interact with encounters in the 3-D sailing setting. Time compression options let you zip into friendly towns if you want instead of tacking around the island, or chase down slow fat merchantmen that tried to sail off while you destroyed their escorts. Learning how to use the time compression menu will shave hours of relatively tedious chasing off your fights, and occasionally even let you sneak up on enemy forts and ships without taking damage. In short, get this game.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: You have to get this game. That's all there is to it. Sea Dogs is a great free-form pirating game. You start, naturally enough, as a would-be buccaneer with a wimpy little ship and no idea what's going on. Never fear, that changes rapidly. You can roam towns in a 3-D third person view, talking to inhabitants, recruiting crewmembers in bars, collecting orders and quests from local governors, and generally having a great time. You can align with the British, the French, the Spanish, or be a rogue Pirate (Pirates are effectively a 4th country). The pirate lands are sort of neutral territory for all, and there you can buy letters of marque from agents of the other countries to fight one another. This is necessary because, for example, if you're allied with the British, you can collect quests and information from the British, but if you go to a Spanish town you tend to get blasted out of the water by coastal batteries. Yet often the bigger quests require you to visit the islands and towns of several different nations. But what is it, really, that we all want from a good seafaring game? Ocean battles.. and you get them here in spades. Beautiful graphics, highly detailed ships and combat effects, and even the ability to switch between steering your ship from afar like a racecar, or walking the deck and using a spyglass to view your enemies make this game totally amazing. The graphics are so good that I was shocked to learn that this game came out years ago. Holes appear in sails as chain kippels fly, waterspouts ring your ship from missed shots, planking flies in the air and badly damaged ships smoulder, masts blow completely off from critical hits, and cannons explode off the walls of fortresses as you engage them with explosive rounds. The weather effects are amazing..fight a running battle with spanish frigates in 20 knot winds and waves so high your ship nearly flounders, or hound your foes through fog so thick the first warning of contact comes from the creak of timbers as you run into their beam. Sinking ships go down with great fanfare and often leave a floating debris trail of cargo you can salvage, although if you want the big hauls, grapple your foe and go hand-to-hand on the quarterdeck to take the cargo and even the ship intact. Other great aspects: 1) RPG EXP system allows rewards for everything from sinking or boarding ships, persuading governors to give you new quests, recovering items, or even just hang out in bars and chatting. As your level increases, you are able to spend points on everything from improving your sailing skills and sword skills to learning how to duck incoming cannon fire. Hire unique NPCs like a First Mate or a Surgeon to augment your skills, although it will increase your crew costs (don't pay and suffer a mutiny or two). The higher a level you are, the better the ship you can command, although this is not as restrictive as it sounds; each class of ship has a half dozen to experiment with. Build your own fleet by hiring NPCs with their own vessels, and placing your First Mate aboard a captured war ship.. command them in battle by telling them to sink specific targets, board others, or follow you and provide covering fire. Complete quests to gain rank and esteem from your allied country, such as a Barony from the British, replete with a fancy new coat and breeches. 2) Great graphics, can't emphasize this enough. Occasional cutscenes add to the flair, such as when you and your mates invade a town with bloodied swords held high. 3) Merchandising. You don't even have to be a pirate or a naval officer, you can just run goods from town to town, taking advantage of local prices and preferences. Most folks will do some of this anyway to pay for repairs, upgrades, new ships, and crew, but you can make it your job and it's still fun. You can even sell captured ships for huge profit. A few other things that I've found helpful in playing the game: 1) The default difficulty is 'Hard'. You can change this in Options at the main screen. A lot of folks seem to have missed this, and get discouraged when they get blasted from the start. It also seems to cut down on the number of times you get attacked in general. 2) High wire act. There aren't a lot of do-overs in this game.{Anger} a governor once, chances are you won't win him back. So save a lot, and really pay attention to your dialogue choices because if you just say the wrong thing you might miss a quest permanently. For example, one quest was to destroy a fort and pillage a town. I destroyed the fort, but accidentally agreed to be paid off by the mayor after running amok, rather than claiming the island for Britain. This effectively 'broke' the quest, since whenever I returned to that town, it was already pillaged, yet I was not able to officially claim it or pillage it again. Also, occasionally things will get buggy with the letters of marque; at one point I was operating under a British letter of marque, yet the British were hostile to me, and the British agent in the pirate town was willing to sell me another. Yet at the same time the Spanish reacted as if I already had one. 3) You sail between islands on a world map, and interact with encounters in the 3-D sailing setting. Time compression options let you zip into friendly towns if you want instead of tacking around the island, or chase down slow fat merchantmen that tried to sail off while you destroyed their escorts. Learning how to use the time compression menu will shave hours of relatively tedious chasing off your fights, and occasionally even let you sneak up on enemy forts and ships without taking damage. In short, get this game.
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