Ships Simulator Review

I have never had anything catfish me the way Ships Simulator’s shop front did. At first glance, my impressions of the screenshots displayed usual graphics and gameplay that you’d find in most simulators; thrilling gameplay and an experience worth doing on a small budget. What I got was a buggy mess with little to redeem.

Developed by 100 Games and published by Ultimate Games, in Ships Simulator, you work in an artistic representation of the Baltic Sea as you sail construction and cargo ships in segmented missions unlocked after each successful job. Instead of most simulators handing the player a sense of freedom in an open world or several stylised levels, Ships (as titled on the thumbnail) has mission specific maps that are janky alongside lazy tower defence minigames too primitive for a game on console.

There are three ships to choose from; a cargo ship, a construction rig and a semi-submersible vessel-recovering platform, each having eight unique missions. Once you’ve purchased the ship, you buy and repair the vessel to working order; well, I say you can repair them, but you simply click on a list of parts to turn the crosses into ticks.

Typically, you use in-game currency to pay for the repairs but in Ships Simulator, the currency is pointless outside of buying the vessels. The cost for repairs is too cheap; removing any incentive to gain more money after a while.

Depending on the ship, missions are basically a courier mission or do an action and not hit rocks and other ships. The stationary missions are the better parts of Ships Simulator due to the ability to work on underwater pipelines and construct a versatile lighthouse. The other missions however – except the few one-time minimalist tower defence jobs at the start of the game that can be best described as point-and-click without a cursor and half of the mechanics explained in short bursts – are almost unplayable.

The distance of the map that loads when sailing is terrible. I didn’t think it was an issue as some games like Minecraft with short draw distances are really successful; until Davey Jones thought a storm was the best time to show off their new flickering ghost ship right in front of me. Other land masses and the copy-and-paste ports didn’t flicker but trying to find the entrance is a fifty-fifty gamble as the only compass arrow to help guide you only points at where you need to dock.

Controls also have their fair share of issues as the manoeuvrability and movement shifts depending on where the camera is, leading to me accidentally crashing into ports or other vessels when not angling the camera at stern. The digital pad and right stick controls movement and left stick controls camera which is where a lot of the control problems reside. When you have to stop moving to take control of the camera as well as, at points, having to use two hands on the D-pad, you have to think who in the development team thought this was a smart move.

After playing Ships Simulator, the main issue I have is the fact that someone may be duped into buying the game due to the marketplace page’s half-truths and high-definition screenshots to discover, like I did, the game is not exactly as advertised. To be honest, if the game was priced any higher, it’d be highway robbery.

For example, the shop promotes “realistic water thanks to the advanced graphics and physics engine”. The water isn’t much to look at; Fishing: North Atlantic has better water animations and isn’t limited on how much of the map is loaded.

If there are any positives that would make Ships Simulator at least worth playing, you’d be hard pressed to find it. Maybe the experience of sailing in a storm could help overlook the repetitive sounds of rain which audibly stops then loops again. Or that the game is short giving you more time to play better games which isn’t saying much. Or when I hummed Tokyo Drift by Teriyaki Boyz when moving around a rock but that doesn’t count.