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At first glimpse this looks, or at least sounds, like another oriental martial arts job. But look a little closer and on the cover you'll see a pair of sabres locked in mortal combat. No, this is Ocean's attempt to follow on the success of Shogun and get in on the wave of pirate mania that seems to be sweeping over our screens. Like Shogun, Tai Pan is based (loosely) on a James Clavell novel.

This is the story of Dirk Struann who made a name for himself smuggling contraband in the South China Seas. You too can believe the excitement of trading in busy ports, dealing with shady smugglers, and battle on the high seas. Cobblers actually. Sorry to disappoint you so early on, but Tai Pan is, in my opinion at least, pretty naff. It seems we're back to the days when software houses think just because a game has a good yarn to go with it you can get away with any old bilge.

The basic idea of the game is essentially the same as in other games of this kind. You take the role of a trader. In this version, someone lends you $300,000 with which to buy a ship, from then on it's up to you. To put it simply you have to make money. You can do this legitimately - by trading goods, you can get involved in a little bit of naughtiness - smuggling, that sort of thing, or you can go the whole hog - blast people out of the water, kill them and steal their belongings.

Your career begins in one of the game's several ports, all of which look pretty much alike. Each port is made up of about 25 screens and contains a warehouse, brother, supplier store, armoury, gaol, bank, inn and restaurant. As you begin the game totally skint the first task is to seek out a loan, the secret Chinese code for "how about a few quid for a sailor down on his luck" is to enter the restaurant, sit down, but not order any good. Upon doing so, you are taken into a back room where an old man gives you a loan of £30,000. You must repay this in six months or else you get your head chopped off.

The next thing to do is look for a boat. So you head straight for the most likely looking place - the bank. Crew can be found at the inn, where they can be bought for $100 each and other supplies and ammunition can be found in more likely places. The other thing you will need to fill the hold with is goods for trading. Unless you intend to make your fortune illicitly you will have to carry tea, jade and silk between the ports, and all of these can be bought and sold at the warehouse.

If that sounds a bit mundane you can always buy something (you never find out what it is) from a bloke on the street corner who surreptitiously offers "'Ere, I got something wot might interest ya" or words to that effect. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, if you fancy a quick bonk the brothel's the place to go.

When you get bored with loafing around town, which shouldn't take too long, head for the quay and set sail. Being at sea is, if anything, more boring than dry land, but it's nice to get a change of scenery. You steer the crude-looking barge left and right with the joystick until you come upon another port looking remarkably like all the others. Alternatively, if you spot another ship, you can enter into combat mode. Combat mode is a remarkably lifelike simulation of a type-in game for the Vic-20 which first appeared in 1863. A ship crosses the horizon from left to right and you must attempt to hit it by adjusting the elevation of your stationary position.

But that's not all. Ships, including your own, can be boarded and a not-very-exciting shoot-'em-up ensues. This involves dodging enemy musket bullets and cutting down the crew with a single thrust of your sabre. The object is to kill the captain, or plunder his vessel. Each time you are hit you lose a crew member, lose them all and you're out of the game. This is an interesting diversion for a couple of minutes but its lack of sophistication is typical of the whole game.

There are a number of things I've not bothered to mention. Like the asinine gambling game that can be played in the restaurant the island on which you can supposedly land and the fact that your crew dies of scurvy if you don't feed them. But none of these alter the fact that on a general level the game is completely naff. In order for something like this to work there have to be some surprises, things have to vary. What's the point of spending days crossing a boring ocean, if what's on the other side is exactly the same as what you left behind? For my money there's still only one swashbuckling sim and that's MicroProse Pirates. All the others, including Tai Pan are leagues behind.