Shiver me timbers, those old sea dogs from Firaxis be working on another one of them Sid Meier's games, harrr! There be Pirates! on PSP soon they say, and those landlubbers from 2K Games are going to make sure we get our greedy hands on their portable booty in January 2007. This will be the third edition of Sid Meier's Pirates!, after the first game originally set sails in 1987, and was followed by two remakes, in 1993 (Pirates! Gold) and 2004/2005 (on PC and Xbox).

I say third and not fourth, because the PlayStation Portable version of Sid Meier's Pirates! still looks a lot like the latest PC/Xbox version. You can see for yourself in these first screenshots released by 2K, depicting very familiar gameplay scenes: sailing, fencing, chit-chatting, and yes, dancing. Every once in a while, Sid has this really weird sense of "fun"...

"In Sid Meier's Pirates!, a strategy / adventure game, players take the role of a Pirate Captain in the 17th century Caribbean - amassing fortune and fame in an attempt to seize a rightful place as one of the most revered and feared pirates in history. Players test their skills as a sea captain exploring the high seas and dueling in land and sea battles in a richly detailed 3D world."

The game will feature widescreen graphics on the PSP, as well as new treasure hunts. But most importantly, it will also include a wireless ad-hoc multiplayer option, which I'm quite intrigued to know how it will work. I can easily imagine several players battling it out on the high seas, but the dancing part... It was embarrassing enough to do it by myself on the PC, and trust me, it's not something you want to brag about in front of your friends. Unless there are copious amounts of grog to go with such a multiplayer dancing session (to wipe the memory clean by next morning).

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)