First off, Pirates of the Cursed Seas is described as a "pocket miniatures" game, though in the years since the game's 2004 debut, this term has largely been replaced by the less suggestive "constructible miniatures" game. The general thinking behind constructible miniatures games (or CMGs as the kids might call them) is an innovation on how to make a traditional miniatures game appeal to players who don’t want to paint minis and how to get said miniatures into booster packs without the huge costs associated with pre-painted figures. The solution, print on sturdy colored plastic cards that can then be punched out and quickly built into simple minis. Kitschy little hobby shop toys and 3D puzzles have been doing it for years, so why not apply the technology to gaming. Pirates of the Cursed Seas was the first to risk it, and as a result, the first success.

So that's the history lesson. Today, Pirates remains at the king of the constructible miniatures game (although WizKids’s Stars Wars CMGs is a great spin-off), with three years of history, ten expansions, and its own spin-off board game. The name, though, brings with it some confusion. The game’s first set was called Pirates of the Spanish Main, though currently the WizKids website refers to it as Pirates of the Cursed Seas. The name change seems to have heralded a shift in the game's content, wherein it changed from being a pretty straight, historical naval combat game to a game that encompasses the sea-monsters and ghost ships made so popular by Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films. Coincidence or corollary, the change panned out for WizKids with the Disney-licensed Pirates of the Caribbean expansion that released last week. So, questions of name or content aside, most folks simply know the CMG as Pirates, which seems as apt a title as you can get.

One booster pack of Pirates technically gives you everything you need to play, with at least two punch-out ships along with crew and treasure cards. The point of the game is to sail your ship from your home island to a treasure island, collect more than half of the treasure there, and return it to your base safely. This sounds simple enough, but when you add in elements of speed, terrain, ship to ship combat, and high-seas... well, piracy, you can see how the game’s simple rules can turn into something quite strategic. In a neat little turn, as your ship takes cannon fire, its pieces come off to represent the damage—something that I personally thought was a clever feature that adds to the feel of broad-siding your scurvy opponent. The collectable element comes in as you build the best fleet of ships, raise the most skilled crew, and put the most useful treasure into play. If you want further details on how to play, check out the Pirates website, where a number of short videos clearly explain—in faux pirate speak—how the game works.

Simple, fast, and fun, Pirates is a cool little game. But the trait that makes it a hit—and likely made constructible miniatures games a viable new genre—is the subject matter. Not just are pirates cool (almost as cool as ninjas, even), but pirates ships can easily and convincingly be reproduced using the game's punch-out plastic bits. If WizKids had chosen to do miniatures of another genre—particularly something like the more organic monsters and heroes of most conventional miniatures game—I could see the stand-up pictures or unconvincing 3D figures being a total flop. As it stands, though, any ruggedness that results from the ships’ simple constructions doesn't seems like a limitation of the genre, but rather a simple representation of the game's historical theme. And when it does come to the occasional fleshy "ships," like the krakens featured in the Curse of Davy Jones expansion (some with quite Lovecraftian names) it still works out quite well.

While I've only played a few games of Pirates, the game has always made me think, "This is neat, but it'd be cooler if my ship was the Flying Dutchman from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.” Since the new expansion adds all the ships and characters from the films, it looks like WizKids just hit gaming gold. So check it out, it's fast, it's fun, and now you can make Johnny Deep/Jack Sparrow do whatever you want (ooooh). And, if going all the way out to your friendly local game store seems like too much of a hassle, you can even play online with Sony's online incarnation. So, hop to it swabies! There's booty to be had!