Merchants & Marauders

Man, I don't like pirates. It took me years to come to terms with it. I could never understand why I just did not get excited by anything to do with them. I like cowboys, Vikings, knights, ninjas and so on but not pirates. Truth be told, I even like space pirates. Maybe it's the whole Caribbean thing and the fact that I don't like the beach or something. Regardless, this game is awesome.

I'm calling it the best pirate game ever made. Because it really is. It made me want to watch pirate movies. I did not, however, feel compelled to say "argh" or any of that other talk like a pirate crap at any point while playing it. Maybe because every game I've played I've managed to pick a lady pirate, and I doubt they talked like that.

I actually saw a very, very early version of this game that Mr. Marcussen sent me back in the BGG days- it looked good then, and it looks even better now. It's a damn shame it took him like five years to find a publisher while boatloads of crap had no trouble finding its way to market. In the adventure game space, this is one of the better titles in recent years, pirates or not. Between this excellent game and Earth Reborn, Z-Man Games is hard at work cementing itself as the most exciting and innovative publisher in the field today. No more pirates though, OK?