Embargo

Maritime history isn't a far cry from trainspotting, but, thanks to the generally high quality of cinematic swashbucklers, sailing the seven seas has earned itself quite a cool reputation. Embargo attempts to build on the salty romance of those historical high seas, but unfortunately finds itself treading water in the shark-infested brine.

The game puts you in command of a classical sail-decked galleon as it goes head-to-head against another wind-powered foe. Like treading in shallow water, the objective is too simple to get things going. First, however, let's christen our review by turning to the game's strong points.

Graphically, Embargo sets out on the right rudder: it's great-looking, with detailed ships and a suitably rolling ocean on which to battle. The landscapes are a little sparse, though to be fair it's not as though a great many obstacles could be realistically placed on the sea.

Chases along the shoreline, weaving through a coral reef or dodging deadly rocks in the shallows as you exchange cannon fire, would definitely spice things up.

To make up for the inherently empty battlegrounds, the developer has blended in some great cinematic effects. Regularly you're given a sweeping view of the battle that follows your return fire across the lapping waves as it smashes into your enemy's broadside. You occasionally get to watch your captain defiantly rattle his sabre as red-hot iron punches through your sails.

The audio accompaniment and sound effects ("Yargh!", "Shiver me timbers", etc.) are also quite spiffy. Despite being vaguely campy, they match the quick and immediate gameplay very nicely.

As splendid as it is, however, Embargo finds itself seriously wanting when it comes to gameplay. Don't get me wrong: the game verges on being quite spectacular. Yet it lacks the refinement needed to overcome an intrinsically frustrating design.

Steering your vessel involves tilts of your handset. A great deal of emphasis is placed on using the wind to move through the water, though in practice it's difficult to see this otherwise interesting gameplay quirk actually making any real difference.

When it comes to battle, you're mainly running parallel - or circling - your opponent in the hope of getting off the most shots before your ship sinks. At times the enemy will make a move to change direction, at which point you’re given a brief opportunity to land a couple of extra hits. Unfortunately, the opposing captain seldom misses, so there isn't a particularly strong sensation of facing off against much of an artificial intelligence.

Firing the port and starboard guns is easy, as you're given a cannon button on either side of the screen to light those particular fuses. Camera control leaves a lot to be desired, though. The camera ought to be positioned automatically, but instead you're required to swipe across the screen to rotate the view 90 degrees in that direction.

Often enough, this means you're not looking directly at your opponent, and therefore you suffer from parallax confusion as you attempt to aim. Even if the camera were more flexible, rather than fixed at 90 degree increments, you might have a better chance of actually seeing what's going on.

The steep difficulty curve and essential lack of strategic options blows a hole in gameplay and spoils what could be a terrific, swashbuckling epic. Embargo harbours the germ of a superb, arcade-style naval battle game, but currently lacks the system intelligence or diversity of gameplay to allow that germ to grow.

It's one of those iPhone games that seems to be waiting for a couple of significant updates to unleash its clear potential. As much as I badly want to enjoy this game, right now it's just too much of a frustrating and limited experience to really get on board with.