Pirates Life Review

Pirates Life is quite a fun little distraction. It doesn't feel like a game worthy of spending hours with, at least not all at once, but it is a game that sneaks up on you. One that you find yourself playing every now and then when you fancy a break from your usual regular games.

In Pirates Life you're a captain of a pirate ship who has been thwarted by stronger pirates. It's down to you to gradually accrue more money and strength in order to defeat the almighty pirates who have stolen your ship. Accruing money is done via capturing rival ships. This is done by choosing your foe and firing cannons at them. It's all quite a simple interface but it's appropriately charming. Firing cannons is done by swiping your fingers across them and waiting for them to fire. Invading ropes are flung in your direction too which must be destroyed by slicing your finger across the rope. In order to acquire more wealth, you have to send your own crew members across to the rival ship. This is also done by a swipe of your finger.

All these swiping of fingers make for an occasionally frantic but compelling experience. In a way, Pirates Life is a form of tower defense game but with more intense action.

There's also an upgrade system whereby you can buy more cannons, faster reload times, stronger cannons, more hit points and so on. This adds a nice tactical edge to proceedings as you can choose to have a strong offense but a weak defense or the other way round.

The auto save functionality within Pirates Life makes it all the easier to dip and out of and the GameCenter support is very welcome, with a series of achievements and leaderboards on offer. For a mere 99c, Pirates Life is jolly good fun indeed.