As technological advancements have made games better looking, it has become commonplace for long-time gamers to fantasize about how great it would be if their old favorites were updated for today's more powerful systems. Among the games inevitably brought up in such musings is Sid Meier's Pirates, a simple hybrid of action and strategy elements, which was great fun when it was released in 1987. Many games have tried to emulate Pirates, whether in formula or in spirit, but until now none have been very successful.

Akella's Sea Dogs follows Sid Meier's treasure map almost to the letter, by taking the basic gameplay elements of the classic and fleshing them out. Sea Dogs is part strategy game, part action game, and part role-playing game. None of these parts works particularly well on its own, and the game has glaring omissions and oversights, which can be baffling at times. But Sea Dogs turns out to be more than the sum of its parts, and its effective combination of three genres makes for an adventure that can be enthralling despite its many problems.

When Sea Dogs begins, your character, Nicolas, has just escaped imprisonment by the Spanish. You arrive on the English island of Highrock, just one of the many fictional islands you'll travel to and from, and your career as a high-seas privateer begins. You'll need to choose an alliance. You can request a letter of marque from the English, French, or Spanish, or you can avoid allegiance altogether and just work as a pirate. Each allegiance has its own storyline, and though they intersect at times, the experiences are distinct enough that you'll want to experiment with them all.

The story element makes up the role-playing portion of Sea Dogs. Nicolas can perform errands for the governors of the different islands, by delivering goods, sinking hostile ships, or escorting merchants. The errands earn him a reputation, experience points, and gold. He can also perform tasks for many of the residents of the towns he'll visit. If he earns enough experience points, he'll gain a level. Advancing in levels lets Nicolas command more powerful ships and earns him skill points that can be allocated to different skills, such as boarding, gunlaying, repairs, or commerce. Nicolas can also hire crewmembers who help increase his skills in particular areas - an immensely important feature, since level advancement in Sea Dogs is relatively slow.

While in town, the game is played from a third-person perspective. You run around and talk to people and visit the local stores. Each town can have a shipwright (for repairs and upgrades), a tavern (for hiring crew), a store (for buying and selling goods), and a town hall. The interface in these sections is functional, though Nicolas' sluggish movement can occasionally be frustrating. If you couldn't talk to the townspeople, the town sequences would be little more than a cumbersome way of bringing to life an interface screen, and at times you'll wish that you could simply see a menu of town options and quickly perform all your needed commerce.

The commerce portion of Sea Dogs is a relatively straightforward game of buying low and selling high. You can buy goods from stores, or if you're a pirate, you can simply attack merchant ships and take their cargo. The commerce model is simple - there aren't many goods, and there really aren't any in-game events that affect trade. But commerce is extremely important in the game, as it will become your main source of income. Because of its importance, it's strange that the commerce interface gives you absolutely no indication of what you have paid for a particular item. If you buy a load of linen in Tendales, you'll have no idea how much of a profit you're making in Highrock when you sell it. Also, the availability of items in the different ports is less than ideal, which makes it difficult to find a steady trade route to earn income when it's needed.

The commerce and role-playing are a substantial element of Sea Dogs, but you'll spend the majority of your time at sea. Most of your seafaring will be done from a map view, which shows the Archipelago islands. More islands are revealed as you sail near them or accept quests to visit them. When you encounter other ships, you'll have the option to ignore them or engage them. Unless, of course, they attack you first.