*Cue Titanic theme*

Continuing the nautical theme - are you looking for a good sailing game and just too impatient to wait? Happily, those kings of all things strategical and simulatory, Paradox Interactive, have you covered. Their upcoming sailing, swindling and swashbuckling title East India Company is in need of beta testers, and Paradox Interactive want YOU to set sail on the high seas with a sneak preview ahead of the game's expected release in the next few months.

One of the complaints I hear leveled at ambitious titles of this sort is that too many bugs get through the QA department, crippling what should have been an interesting and innovative final product, turning it into an unplayable mess. This opportunity to take part in the testing process gives players a chance to help ensure such a thing never occurs in games anticipated titles. If you're interested in signing up, you can head over to the beta signup page and enter your details; with any luck, you and plenty of other attentive little squirrels will soon be slogging away at the game to find out how many different ways you can break it!

East India Company allows you to choose between merchant, naval commander or pirate from one of eight nations historically associated with the Indies trade, and sends you out to develop your career through any means necessary, as you tackle the almost frivolous addition of a plot involving a murdered father and brother. I expect most gamers to completely ignore this story in their quest to become the scurviest seadog ever to plough the ocean waves, as they indulge in maritime combat, exploration, trading, and building a fleet of ships.

East India Company seems to have been delayed a little bit, with no release date confirmed yet; however, if the extended development assists in honing this epic open-world game into something that can be played for more than twenty minutes without massive, bug-related frustration, it will certainly be worth it.