Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life

Pirates! offers players the chance to take on the role of a privateer the Caribbean. From here, the game is pretty much up to you. You can get involved in trading, treasure hunting, ship fights, town assaults, duels and all manner of other activities. The game is wonderfully episodic and presents a variety of opportunities to the player based on context. You pick your nationality from Spanish, English, French and Dutch, a starting date, and a special talent, such as sword fighting or ship handling. Once you've created a captain, you're given a ship and a few men and tasked with charting your own course through the waters of the Caribbean and the sometimes stormier sea of European politics. Based on Sid Meier's 1987 classic of the same name.