Ships Simulator Review (PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5)

I’ll be the first to put my hands up and say this: I am not, in any way, shape, or form, accustomed to the nautical world, let alone the vessels that patrol the Baltic Sea and the gadgets and gizmos that guide them. Having said that, I have always wanted to go gallivanting about in the depths of a tropical haven as the fledgling captain of a *checks palm* container…ship. Well, not really, but even still, I couldn’t exactly pass up the opportunity to try something new, either, as I’ve always thought fondly of the unknown waters and the treasures that each of their respective bays hold in their possession. Does this mean I was going to fall head over heels in love with Ships Simulator right from the get-go? You’d honestly like to think so, but no.

Ultimate Games’ console port of the 2017 game by FragOut is arguably one of the laziest games I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing—a statement that, while almost regrettable, is annoyingly accurate, to say the least. But I’m getting ahead of myself on this one, so we’ll rewind the clock and take it back to the shipyard — if only to fill in a few missing pieces and establish context. Care to join us as we plummet deep into the depths of the latest simulation entrée? Then let’s press on.

Stay…Awake 

Ships Simulator starts out like a lot of automotive simulator-type games: with a run-down vessel, and a few missing bells and whistles to make it whole again. With a budget of just under a million bucks, your goal is to right a few wrongs and tweak a couple of mechanical components before setting out to sea. How do you go about doing that, exactly? Why, you press the Repair button, of course. And that’s really it.  In the first ten minutes of the campaign, you need only press the same button several times over, after which you can begin the tutorials. But boy, don’t even get me started on the tutorials.

The first hour of Ships Simulator has you completing a slew of incredibly mundane tasks, from repeatedly loading and unloading shipping containers to and from your vessel, and docking your cargo at a snail-like speed while, rather inconveniently, a boatload (pun intended) of NPCs and additional vessels glitch and spawn in and out of view. It’s boring, to say the least — and even when I happened to master the art of maneuvering cargo with the half-baked and wonky controls, I rarely found that the rewards were, you know, rewarding.

Ships Simulator is a chore-core game at heart, which means the bulk of the gameplay often revolves around carrying out small tasks, and reaping the minor benefits for doing so. In this case, however, your only real reward is the extra cash that gets drizzled on top of your basic paycheck—a reward that, in all fairness, doesn’t really count for much, given the fact that most missions simply give you the right tools to complete them, anyway. And so, even when I managed to perfect the objective, I still found myself asking the same question: what is the point?

Low Stakes, Low Tide

There are 24 missions in Ships Simulator, all of which contribute towards a relatively bare-bones campaign. Aside from the tutorials—segments in which your only objective, really, is to tap a few buttons and wrap your head around the poorly inverted controls—the bulk of the story has you meandering around in the Baltic Sea in one of several ocean freighters. In each mission, you either receive the correct vessel, or you put forth your own, which is done by applying your accrued funds from earlier exploits into upgrading the appropriate ship. It’s simple enough, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inviting, let alone compelling enough to keep you on high heels for a dozen or more hours without so much as a dockside hiatus.

All in all, I was able to single-handedly sludge through the bulk of the campaign and see all there was to see in less than eight hours. Am I glad that it didn’t overstay its welcome and push the literal boat out to a dozen or more? Absolutely. Do I honestly believe that Ultimate Games’ team could’ve coughed up a bit more and transformed an otherwise mediocre game into something much greater? You bet. But that’s just it. Ships Simulator didn’t push the limits — it cowered before them, and it did all in its power to play it safe, even at the cost of losing out on a genuinely enjoyable experience.

Bite-sized campaign set aside, Ships Simulator doesn’t have all that much to offer, nor does it have the replay value that you’d come to expect from a traditional simulation game. There are 24-plus missions to shovel through, all of which separate into three unique ship classes — and that’s about it. Not a great way to add meat to the bones, really.

Lack of Ripples

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy certain parts of Ships Simulator, though weirdly enough, said parts rarely ever had anything to do with the art of sailing on high tides. Strangely, I found that the best moments in the game often came from having to carry out on-board chores, such as putting out fires, or batting away pirates. But even then, those chores rarely ever involved much legwork, as the bulk of the tasks often asked only that I tap a button or position the camera in a certain way. Nothing particularly exciting, but then, I can’t say I was filled with much hope after spending two hours offloading containers at a fragmented dockside, either.

Ships’ controls is another story, and one that, quite frankly, I’m not particularly keen to wrap my head around for a second time, either. It’s confusing, to say the least, and not because there are a hundred or more buttons to remember or items on the agenda to work through, but because nearly everything is either inverted, broken, or next to non-existent. For example, on PlayStation, you operate the camera using the left stick, and then half of the crane with the right stick, followed by the second half with the directional pad. For this reason alone, I often found that my hands were cross-crossing in order to complete even the most basic of tasks. And I think I speak for everyone when I say, it’s 2023 — why is this even a thing?

Lastly, there’s the graphics—a half-baked treasure trove of poorly animated sprites and static ripples. Suffice to say, nothing has changed since its 2017 inception — even for Xbox and PlayStation. To put it bluntly, it isn’t great, and if anything, it’s actually a bit of an eyesore, all things considered.

Verdict

I think I speak for everyone when I say, if you’re falling asleep while playing a video game — then you’re probably not going to wake up with the urge to do it all over again. Such is the case with Ships Simulator, unfortunately, as it more or less compresses the most mundane of tasks into a relatively bite-sized picnic of naval operations. And the worst part is, they’re not even the slightest bit entertaining, let alone rewarding — even by chore-core standards, either.

I’m not going to beat around the bush and pretend that something like a ship simulation game is an award-winning, revolutionary concept — because it isn’t. That said, even with relatively low expectations, I honestly thought that there would be more to it — if only enough to get the blood flowing and the weight of the world up onto my shoulders. But there wasn’t any of that. Instead, I was left to relive some horrendous moments that, if I remember correctly, involved a sociopath named Trevor, a crane, and a twenty-minute slog of moving shipping containers back and forth. That was Ships Simulator, in a nutshell: a surprisingly boring slog through some of the most mundane aspects of cargo-hauling duties ever created.

If you’re wondering whether or not to pick it up, then just know this: if you’re patient enough, and just so happen to get your kicks from completing chores and other mundane tasks, then you’re sure to love Ships Simulator. If, however, you’re looking for something—anything with a beating heart, then you ought to weigh anchor and plant roots in an entirely different body of water.