The strategy/adventure game Sid Meiers Pirates! is a classic. Originally produced and designed by Sid Meier, this game made a welcome return last year on both the PC and the Xbox. Sporting updated graphics and some additional gameplay, it retained a lot of the original compelling play that made the original a hit with many gamers.

The game's premise is that you are a young man whose family and fortune have been cruelly taken away by the Marquis. Escaping the fate of servitude, you take to the sea and learn the trade of a pirate. You are tasked with accumulating wealth and power while tracking down your missing family and defeating the other competing pirates.

The game consists of sailing your small ship around the Caribbean Sea. You gain fame and fortune by capturing or sinking other nations' ships (nations include Holland, Spain, France and England). As you progress you can capture bigger and better vessels and increase the size of your fleet. Capturing a ship requires you to blast the opposing ship to a near stop, followed by boarding her and facing your opponent's captain in a toe-to-toe swordfight.

Once victorious, you can elect to take on members of the defeated crew seeking a pirate's life, take on board the ship's cargo and either sink the ship or add it to your fleet.

The fun is trying to place your ship in the ideal firing position to rake the opposition from stem to stern. Not an easy task as you need to take into account relative speed and also wind direction.

Initially your small sloop can outpace most ships, but its small number of cannon means you need to be careful whom you confront. It's not long though before you are using bigger warships with many guns. These are slower and require more skill, however their devastating firepower means that many a smaller ship disintegrates in its path before you have a chance to capture it.

Damage to your ship causes you to slow down and to recitfy this you need to make port on an island owned by a friendly country. There you can offload your ill-gotten cargo, recruit more sailors and upgrade your ships with better cannon, ammunition and sails. Each port contains a different upgrade so you need to sail about a bit to optimise your fleet to its full potential.

It's in port that you can visit the tavern and speak to the locals for information. This can take the form of treasure maps, and more importantly hints on the whereabouts of the rest of your family. You get information on some of the more notorious pirates as well and by targeting these you can gain some serious gold. It is however just plain fun to forgo the storyline and go pirating.

This game feels and plays like a direct port from the PC and retains some of the quirky game elements of the original. Yes, there are still the the clandestine trips into town and the the dance-off for the affections of the Governor's daughter. It's not all good however; the smaller screen means that it is easy to run out of room and it's not unusual to find yourself blasting away at a ship off-screen if you are not careful. Worse still is the fact that the screen can become quite crowded and when this happens it's hard to sort friend from foe. Some of the ships also run at a fair clip - unrealistically so, and you need to be quick on the buttons to catch them.

Despite this the animation was smooth, the ship and controls were excellent and the video sections were of a very high quality. The on-screen size of ships made it difficult to ascertain your direction at times but this is only at the start when you are using the smaller ships.

The music is the same annoying naval pipe music that will have you still humming it long after you put the game down. Coupled with some good sound effects this is a very well put together game (something that is synonymous for a Sid Meier title).

Overall Sid Meier's Pirates! is a great little game that lends itself very well to the handheld console. A bit of pirating while on the bus or train is a lot of fun, although someone looking over your shoulder while you are trying to win a dance contest is probably not the best scenario.