Developer: Ultimate Games
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Platform: PS4, PS5
Tested on: PS5
Ships Simulator – Review
Ships Simulator is a simulation game about cargo ships around the Baltic Sea. It is a game for the PlayStation 5 and made by Ultimate Games. Simulation games are known to try and simulate something from real life into a video game. We often look at how well these simulators are made and how enjoyable the gameplay is. Now, let us take a look at how good our cargo transportation is and hope that we do not lose any of our precious cargo on the way.
Story
Ships Simulator is a simulation game where you pick a type of cargo ship and go from one port to another. It doesn’t have a story, but you do unlock your next ‘mission’ when the previous is completed. It would have been interesting for a career mode as the possibility is there. Most of the other good simulator games do have a career mode and often have a small overarching narrative.
Graphics
The graphics of Ships Simulator aren’t the best. Your vessel isn’t customizable in appearance as it is a blue ship with the words ‘World Ship Line’ on it. The font looks very cheap and as if it was slapped on the hull with a cheap text editor. It would have been nice if we were able to choose what name we were going to sail with and some other color options for the ship.
There are visual bugs when it comes to sailing. Your boat glides just above the water. The animation quality was quite decent, most things move fluidly, except for a few components that felt a bit rough around the edges. Rain is represented by white stripes on the screen. Those stripes move with you when you turn around the camera. The draw distance isn’t far, and this is very noticeable when you are moving with your ship and a rock suddenly appears.
Sound
On the topic of sound, most of the sound effects like wind or rain do sound cheap. Most of the sound effects sound as if they’re directly taken from a free audio library. We would have loved a bit more variety here. Everything sounds very generic and cheap, albeit functional. For music, there is some in the title screen, but this is sadly all you’re getting.
Gameplay
Ships Simulator is a Simulator that starts with choosing which kind of cargo ship you want to buy. You can choose between the classic container ship, an oil rig, or what the game calls an ‘orange ship’. It’s nice to have several different options to choose from. After the purchase, you need to repair your cargo ship.
When done with the repairs, the game can start. Your first mission is to load your ship. To load your ship you will be taking control of a crane. Containers are ready on a truck, and all that you need to do is take them and put them in the open spaces which are indicated with a transparent container glowing. This is an easy task but a very slow process as the crane operates at the same speed as it would in reality. When it comes to placing the container, be sure not to hit the boat or other containers as it will deduct it from the money that you will get. We always got money deducted, as for some reason we weren’t able to properly release containers onto our vessel.
After the loading up mission, you have a mission of getting your boat in the harbor. Be warned, ships in this game are quite slow. Of course, the developers tried to imitate the speed of a real cargo boat. Turning around is a hassle as it takes a while to turn and only when you go forward, and this does take some time to get used to. To stop the ship, you need to put the speed on 0 and wait a little as it will get a little further before it stops.
This is basically the game’s main gameplay loop. You’ll always have the aspect where you have to manage the containers to then sail to your destination. The overall mission format stays the same throughout the game, which is of course normal. It all depends on the chosen ship and what you’ll have to transport. Ships Simulator is a slow game, as it does in fact try to mimic what you would have to do in real life. Sadly, everything feels a bit clunky and sluggish, and even with the option to speed up time, there aren’t that many really interesting components to this game. It’s a functional experience for the most part, but that’s about it.
Conclusion
Ships Simulator does have a few interesting features, but as this is in fact a port of a 2016 PC game, you can’t help but notice the game’s very dated mechanics and lack of polish. It tries to get most of the elements as realistic as possible, which we can only commend, but again the rough edges rear their ugly head. The assets may not be pretty but that’s not always the most important aspect of a simulator. Even though there are probably worse titles out there to spend you’re time with, you’re still dishing out 15 EUR for a game that was released in 2016. If you’re into games like this, and you truly want to give it a go, we suggest waiting on a heavy discount.
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