Remember back in school, out on the back field at lunchtime when a game of footy or bullrush was being organised (bullrush was actually allowed back in my day) and the two captains would take turns in picking kids for their team? There was always one kid who always got picked last, and even then only because, well, there was nobody else left to pick.

Nintendo’s Wii must be feeling a bit like that kid when it comes to Sid Meier’s Pirates!

The game has appeared on basically every other gaming platform in the last six years, and it seems as though some middle-management type, slurping wheatgrass and rockmelon smoothies in the 2K Games boardroom has gone…

“Ahh jeez, I suppose we’d better put this out for the Wii too”

“But that means we’ll have to incorporate motion controls!”

“Goddamn it! Just throw in some flailing arm movements and a couple of mini-games, that’ll shut them up! It doesn’t have to work well, we can always blame the hardware limitations”.

And so, here we are.

If you’ve played Pirates! before, no matter what version, then move along as there’s nothing new to see here other than a couple of exclusive mini-games and some extra character and ship customisations. There is, of course the obligatory motion control, but on the whole there’s nothing new that would make you want to rush out and buy a Wii, or even rent one for the weekend.

The motion control could have been implemented in more interesting ways – steering your ships for example – but seeming as it’s so inconsistent in when, and if, it picks up your movements, then perhaps it’s a blessing that the feature is only used in the mini-games.

When you board an enemy ship, a sword fighting mini-game ensues. You have three attacks and three defence moves – thrust, chop, slash and block, duck, jump but only attacking is controlled by the motion method, defence is taken care of with A, B or A+B. Unfortunately, because moves have to be fairly accurately timed, the game all too often just doesn’t pick up your movement fast enough, if you try to play it the way it was meant to be played of course. But ironically enough, flailing your arms around wildly is usually sufficient to defeat anyone, eventually, so the whole idea is pretty much a moot one.

Lock picking is one of the Wii exclusives – and succeeds where fighting fails due to the need for gentler movements.

For those who haven’t had any exposure to the game at all, the premise is simple, but the journey can be as long and involved as you want it to be.

You play as a young European man in the time of the colonisation of the New World. An evil Baron kidnaps your family due to unpaid debts and you must make your way across the Atlantic to find and rescue them. That’s it as far as the story goes, but you’re not going to be able to do it alone, therefore you must amass wealth, loyal and strong crew members, a powerful and sturdy ship and clues along the way.

But you don’t have to always head to the next waypoint in the story, this is a strategy game and with it comes a certain amount of free-roaming flexibility to take diversions as you see fit. Hell, you can even pull into some pleasant port and become a wealthy trading merchant if you wish. It won’t get your family back in a hurry, but at least you have life choices.

But let’s be fair, the game is called Pirates! for a reason – you’re meant to sail the seas, plundering and pillaging all and sundry. Encountering other vessels, seeing what they’ve got worth stealing and then cannon-balling the crap out of them is what the game is all about. Let’s not forget sailing into foreign ports and pillaging everything (including the local women – cue the silly dancing mini-game).

As with any strategy game, there’s the tedium of travelling from place to place, except with Pirates! there’s not a great deal to see – you’re in the ocean after all, and you’re only means of propulsion is the wind. That means lengthy spans of real-time sailing that requires nothing more that pointing your ship in the right direction and waiting. The Wii handles this very well though, as there’s nothing much to draw except blue and the occasional bit of green.

Removing my sarcasm hat, Sid Meier’s Pirates! is still the quality game that it’s always been in all of its guises. Sure, there’s some niggling issues with the motion control scheme, but outside of that there’s a heap of strategy gaming to be had that’s accessible to novices and veterans alike.