Ports Of Call

The prospect of being in charge of a large, rusty goods freighter and facing weeks at sea may not seem like the most glamorous employment, but there's a staggering amount of cash to be made from naval commerce.

The thrill of seeing those dollars mount up as you buy and sell goods around the globe is ably replicated by this smartphone update of an old Amiga classic.

In Ports Of Call, you're a rookie shipowner in the early stages of building a vast trade empire. With a small amount of cash, you need to purchase a seaworthy ship, load it with valuable items, and pick a port to visit.

If you're savvy enough to buy an item that's cheap in one part of the world but expensive in another your voyage will be rewarded with a healthy profit.

As the cash comes rolling in you can afford to upgrade your fleet and purchase additional ships. The more you have in operation at any one time, the more money you stand to make - but beware of the costs involved, too.

Ships require fuel to run, and often fall foul of hidden expenses - such as repairs to damage done during a storm, or tolls levied when you pass through various canals.

Ports Of Call has been ported almost directly from the Amiga original, and features the same graphics and audio. This will either be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective.

Those of you old enough to have experienced the game back when it was original launched will no doubt become misty-eyed with nostalgia, but newcomers will scoff at the primitive presentation.

Sink or swim

It's also impossible to escape the fact that some of the controls just don't work on a smartphone. For example, when manually docking your ship in port you're expected to use an on-screen joystick for delicate movements, but navigating using this method is frustrating.

Some of the virtual buttons - designed to be clicked with a mouse - are simply too small to hit accurately when using a touchscreen. Playing on a tablet overcomes this problem slightly, but it's still far from perfect.

While the developers of Ports Of Call should be commended for staying true to the original vision and converting the game faithfully, we can't help but feel that a little more spit and polish is required to make this a watertight smartphone release.