Review | Ship Simulator Extremes
Ahoy there…
Format: PC | Genre: Simulator | Publisher: Paradox | Developer: VSTEP BV | Release Date: 27/08/10 | Price: £34.99
Greg Giddens sets sail for dangerous waters in SHIP SIMULATOR EXTREMES.
SHIP SIMULATOR Extremes continues to offer the simulated experience of piloting a variety of vessels on the intractable and vast oceans of the world, this time with additional ‘extreme’ hazards and missions to test your skills. However, despite efforts to make this iteration more accessible and entertaining to the masses, Ship Simulator Extremes is still a title that only really captivates current fans and boating enthusiasts.
Explore the seven seas
As with previous instalments, ranging from small speed boats to oil tankers and even cruise liners, you are free to roam specific ocean locations at will, sightseeing harbours and braving treacherous weather as you see fit. However, a new feature this year sees the introduction of three campaigns, Greenpeace, Tourist Tales, and Core Campaign. Each campaign concentrates on different elements, The Greenpeace missions have you attempting to protect the environment and defend the oceans, often with your ships acting as deterrents. The Tourist Tales campaign has you sightseeing and protecting your passengers and crew from unfortunate situations. And the Core campaign has you dealing with rescue situations. Each campaign features different locations and ships to keep things unique and does a great job with mission variety. This is where the ‘extremes’ are implemented. The mission objectives have you deal with extraordinary situations, from seeing off illegal whalers to evacuating an island during a natural disaster. These missions both grant a structure to the experience that was never present in previous iterations – one that certainly helps to entice newcomers – and offers a more exciting set of scenarios. It’s unfortunate then that despite these additions the simulation aspects slow the pacing down to a crawl and fail to keep newcomers gripped. Despite simple controls and interesting objectives, actually moving your vessel is a slow and arduous task. The realism of the simulation means slow movement speed for the large vessels and a great deal of wide open space to traverse, and whilst these aspects make it an excellent simulation, as a game it’s lacking in fun, and the majority won’t gel with the experience.
For fans, however, Ship Simulator Extremes features welcome improvements over previous iterations. The structure and content of the missions offer more scope to the experience rather than resting solely on the free roaming aspect, and rewards from these missions add value for the enthusiast. For completing objectives in mission you can unlock postcards and videos as rewards. The postcards show photos of harbours from around the world whilst the videos show real life footage of situations similar to those you experience in the campaigns. They’re great awards that definitely encourage players to tackle the missions but much like the experience, it’s more appealing to the nautically minded and provides little or no compulsion for anyone else.
As a simulation it successfully conveys the right feel for piloting ships but the immersion is compromised by a lack of atmosphere. The visuals are bland and lacking detail, and whilst the ships and water look fine it fails to impress overall. With the addition of restrictive camera controls, no crew, and no ambient music, there’s little in Ship Simulator Extremes presentation to pull you in.
Ship Simulator Extremes is undoubtedly a good simulator and fun can be found on the high seas, but it’s short lived and hard to find. Unfortunately- despite the efforts made – it’s unlikely to attract new players but with the series being so popular amongst its current player-base perhaps that doesn’t matter.
