I was playing pirate101 today while babysitting my laundry, and I have to say I'm very impressed at how much it feels like you're a pirate.
Like. The target audience for this game can't be older than 10. Most media aimed at children tends to market pirates as cool sailors with a gimmick---especially if they're the protagonists. Very little thievery and murder and treachery and pillaging and negotiations and crime actually involved. Because we can't make morally wrong and illegal activity look cool, these guys have to be a role model for children!
But in the spiral? Nuh uh, none of that watered-down sissy baby garbage! You're spending non-insignificant portions of this game working for the Frog Mafia. You are helping known criminals wriggle their way out of debts and favors! Freaking Ratbeard---traitorous seasoned pirate extraordinaire---is a staple of your crew! You are fully expected to brutally beat people up in pursuit of shiny things. Your spend most of ypur sidequests helping various parties betray each other and will switch sides in another couple hours. Your boss is morally dubious at best. You start the game in a jail cell for crying out loud!
And yeah, the regime(s) you're opposing ain't exactly scrupulous either, but that's also true to life! Piracy irl was not The Uncomplicated Good Guys vs. The Always Evil Foes. Both sides sucked pretty bad most of the time, but the pirates were the cooler underdogs, so they get all the romanticization and publicity.
And I genuinely have so much respect for this game for portraying that! Pirates were criminals! So you're doing crime! And it's great and you still feel like a heroic protagonist because the game isn't selling itself on being a moral pillar of goodness, it's selling itself on the sheer FUN of being on a ragtang gang of pirates and sticking it to the man---er clockwork. The point is to win and to have fun and be yourself while doing it; NOT to be a role model.
Just. Props to Pirate101 for being a video game centered around doing copious amounts of illegal activity for giggles and profit and still making me feel like the good guy!
