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Set in and around the South Mediterranean, Cascade's budget disk release Pirates Of The Barbary Coast takes you on a voyage of danger and excitement as you attempt to rescue your beloved daughter, Katherine.

While docked at Casablanca, the ferocious pirate Captain Bloodthroat ransacked your ship and kidnapped the young lady in question. The evil buccaneer is now holding her for ransom on an island off the West Coast of Africa. You must either raise the cash, in the form of 50,000 pieces of gold, or venture forth to the blackguard's hideout, and face him in nautical combat!

You begin your voyage from the port of Casablanca, with a map appearing to show the available destinations along the Barbary Coast of North Africa.

To raise the necessary bullion, you have to trade commodities between ports. These can include wool, silk and rum - almost anything really, as long as there's a profit in it. To hedge your bets, inside information can be obtained from unscrupulous storekeepers - for a price.

While sailing from port to port, pirates who may want to indulge in an little high-speed cannonball swapping are encountered. You may either free the battle or stand and fight. Firing your cannons is carried out in a realistic fashion: they must be loaded with powder and a cannonball, tamped down and brushed out.

The enemy ship sails slowly past your row of fifteen cannons, which are fired inidividually. Achieving a direct hit depends upon the elevation of the barrel, which becomes a matter of trial and error: a message bar tells you if your shot was long or short, allowing you to alter the elevation accordingly. Achieving a direct hit causes the opposing ship to burst into flames, and when enough damage is sustained, the enemy ship flounders.

At this point, you may board the vessel and take either the ship's log for information, or its booty to swell your coffers.

Keeping your ship and crew in good condition also plays an important part in your mission, which concludes only when you have rescued your daughter or gone to Davy Jones' locker in the attempt.

Disk only.

Obviously there are comparisons here to the equivalent Microprose offering, and in fact the basis of both games is very similar, with trading and battles being the main features of the gameplay.

Pirates! does have a lot more depth, but of course it costs twice as much to buy.

The graphics of Cascade's release are of a fairly basic standard and the gameplay is also repetitive, but actually destroying other vessels is quite good fun, especially when they cruise past on fire!

Pirates Of The Barbary Coast isn't anything special though, and should really have been even cheaper to justify its so-called budget label.

After the rather disappointing Pirates, I had high hopes for this release - unfortunately, I was let down again.

The graphics and trading aspects are very simplistic, and become repetitious after a couple of sessions. That's not the worse thing though - the gameplay is also incredibly slow.

Having to load the cannons one after the other is amazingly laborious, and there's no real 'action' otherwise. That, coupled with the long disk accesses, means it isn't long before the game gets incredibly tiresome.

Presentation 71%
Pleasant introduction, but the slow-moving cursor is a bind - especially during the battle sequence.

Graphics 52%
The graphics generate little atmosphere, and on occasion are quite poorly executed.

Sound 23%
A weak opening tune plus one or two decent effects.

Hookability 67%
The distinct lack of action is not helped by the off-putting cursor control.

Lastability 48%
Those who persevere should rapidly see a conclusion to the mission, and the occasional player will find little to stir the imagination.

Overall 57%
A noble attempt at a budget disk game. Unfortunately, it's let down by the lack of depth and variety.