Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy

There's no big-budget fanfare for this title, no horde of developers, no committee meetings and embargo dates. Instead you have a clean, honest arcade naval shooter for a little over thirty bucks.

Considering that Buccaneers was created by just two individual developers, the end result is quite impressive.

Nothing deep here but even though the game has very arcade-like roots, taken as a package it works. The scored missions give a reason to try to achieve a quick and efficient solution. This may not be a game that you will sit down and spend hours with, but in increments you should walk away with a smile on your face.

You might have seen that I’ve been using words like adequate and fine often in this review, and that’s really because it’s the best way to describe the game: good. Not great, not bad, but there are plenty of worse ways to spend $20. With over fifty missions and 26 ship types there’s enough to keep an eager pirate playing, but without an online audience the game’s potential is hindered.

If you like parrots, peg legs and cannons, you should definitely take a closer look. Become the most famous pirate in the whole Caribbean ... HARR.

The good in the game is the price and how casual it is for gamers who want just a nice simple arcade title with pirates and while the game could be better on all fronts it is a fun experience in short bursts.

From the moment you set sail aboard Buccaneer you get the immediate sense of quality thanks to a deliciously crafted gameworld, where beautifully sculpted islands nestle amongst the oceans, themselves as visually impressive as anything else you'll likely find in any big-budget equivalent.

Very much a ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ game. At best it’s an entertaining and strangely compelling shooter with simple but fun gameplay. At worst it’s repetitive and fiddly with no real draw.