In 2004 I owned only my laptop, with no full size keyboard -- but the sword fighting minigame really benefits from a numeric keypad. And so I bought a USB numeric keypad, which is an odd little accessory which, every 5 years or so, proves handy for some reason or other.
Thing is, the keypad isn't used 24/7 (though it was great for multiplayer on same keyboard), and the mentioned variant is portable. This allows flexility. For example, (assuming right handed mouse here) it can be put on the right side of the mouse instead of the left. Or it could be used on an armchair of a sofa. It is perhaps a cheap one, not caring about dirt or wear, but you could buy a mechanical one or a physically more nice one.
If people can use one Azeron Cyborg with one hand (or two with two hands) as a way against carpal tunnel syndrome then 80% and 60% keyboards are likely just a hack to keep backwards compatibility whereas the better long term solution is likely a proper alternative (with e.g. chording).
That said, I'm happy with my 80% (not with the 60% due to it missing arrow keys which I sometimes use, for example with a shell). But vertical mouse with a lot of buttons are rare (Azeron Cyro is an exception), so for now I'm using a Logitech Vertical MX.
Oh I'm sure that's true! I've never had to do enough data entry to learn the muscle memory for it, so for people like me it's just perpetually in the way.
I'm rocking an MX Mechanical Mini and I'm overall quite satisfied with it, though it's frustrating that the single-touch switching between multiple paired receivers doesn't take the MX-series mouse with it; this seems like really obvious functionality to have left on the table. At the same time, it doesn't seem like any of the other premium/gaming peripheral makers have tried to integrate anything like this. It's just 1:1 peripheral to receiver dongle, and "get a KVM" if you have more than one device to control.
Full keyboards with numpad are great but I wish the numpad was on the left side of the keyboard so that it doesn't fall between the alphabetical keys and the mouse (right handed). I always feel my right arm travels unnecessarily long distances to switch between the keyboard and the mouse.
For the original on my PC, I remember finding the sword fighting minigame hard to control. Unless I used a cutlass: the issue I had was in the fine grained control. So I built my sword fighting style around the coarser, heavier damage of the cutlass.
I liked the beginning of the 2004 Pirates!, but after a while the gameplay is too repetitive. In the end I found the game boring, and I think it could have used a slightly more realistic simulation of the ships and their battles - I remember that I was able to outmaneuver cannon balls after they were fired from the enemy ship - they moved so unrealistically slow...
I can't help but wonder if those parts of the game kind of work as a dirty bit, a fat friend, that makes the rest of the game feel that much better.
Port Royale (and many other games) kind of take the core aspects of Pirates (open world, combat, trade, pinnace to ship of the line, retirement, piracy/privateering, and so on) and then try to expand on it allowing one to operate multiple fleets, developing cities, and many other such things - with no particularly annoying aspect. And they're enjoyable, but somehow don't come anywhere near Pirates, and I can't think of any particular reason why not.
Actually come to think of it, most of every great game I can think of also had some really really terrible aspects. For a more popular example, the combat in Skyrim is some of the worst in any RPG. But perhaps these failings make the rest of the game shine that much more.
> For a more popular example, the combat in Skyrim is some of the worst in any RPG
The combat in Skyrim is much better than Oblivion though, and light years ahead of Morrowind
Honestly? I kind of prefer it to something like Witcher 3, too. It's much more fast paced and dynamic because you are locked into first person and you have to be aware of your surroundings and such. Whereas Witcher 3, once you learn how to beat a particular enemy you can pretty much just do the same every time without fail, for the next 80-100 hours
My impression of the combat in Skyrim got off to a shaky start because my first weapon was a thumping great two-handed warhammer, and I didn't realise how much that was slowing me down. I just thought it was rubbish and hard to control.
Dancing wasn't the greatest (though by no means does it ruin the game), but the land battles were awesome and made the game significantly better by their inclusion. I would love a new version of Pirates to see what they do with it (though maybe I shouldn't, considering how badly they ruined Civ 7), but the 2004 version is still incredible to this day.
I liked the land battles at the time, though they were definitely limited compared to its contemporaries. Dancing and sword fighting were unfun for sure. A modernization would be awesome, the closest experiences for me have been AC Black Flag and Rebel Galaxy.
I dont know. When I first heard about their game, I expected a neat pirate ship combat sandbox game, but instead it turned out to be a lame ass arcade shooter.
I dont recall seeing anyone happy about this, outside white knights on reddit.
It seems like there are a lot of niche game concepts and genres that are falling to the wayside as the major devs and publishers are more interested in dumbing things down for a larger, more casual (or in some cases more competitive audience). Hell Civ7 is sitting at mostly negative recent reviews after pulling that shit.
My memory may be wrong, but weren't the sequence of dance moves in the original manual? I think it was a form of anti-piracy- though playing it enough you could memorise the dance.
> I think it was a form of anti-piracy- though playing it enough you could memorise the dance.
The antipiracy measure in Civilization was possibly the weakest ever devised.
After playing the game for a while (so the player gets a demo), it will bring up a screen that displays the image of a technology and asks you to choose the prerequisites to that technology. You answer by selecting one of four multiple-choice options listing technology names.
So right off the bat you have a 25% chance of passing the check.
The intent is that you consult the manual, which lists the prerequisites for every technology and also displays the images. But you don't have to do that. You can consult the in-game Civilopedia, which does the same thing. (You can't do that while you're being asked to pass the check, but nothing stops you from doing it in advance.) Or, of course, you're likely to have the answer memorized, because this is a fundamental part of the way the game works.
Quizzing you with information from the manual which was also regularly relied on in gameplay, IIRC, was common in MicroProse games of the time (before they started using actual copy protection measures on the disks), not unique to Civ; as I recall, some of their combat simulators did similar things with weapon stats, vehicle silhouettes, etc.
I have fond memories of the "Dial-a-Pirate" [1] and similar copy protection wheels of Lucas Arts Games such as Monkey Island. I think I have them somewhere in a box.
At least in the remake, I think the dance minigame was randomized, but you could pretty easily play it perfectly. The dance partner does a little hand gesture to show you what to do next, and then you just hit he key in time with the music.
