Fortuente

The Ship - most under-appreciated game EVER

October 25th, 2008

Depending on how much of a Steam fan you are, you may or may not have noticed that The Ship is on sale for $5 this weekend. I have had my eye on this game for a long time and when I saw the temporary 75% off I had to pick it up.

So what did I discover about the game, you may be wondering?

That it is the single most underplayed and under-appreciated game on Steam. If you read the Steam forums for any length of time, you will see a number of players bemoaning that not enough people play the multiplayer version of this game. Now I see why they care so much - last night when I finally pulled myself away from the game I looked at the clock and it was 5:00 AM. I literally lost track of several hours playing this game. And I am now power-chugging coffee to make up for the lost sleep.

The premise of the game is simple - it’s a murder thriller (not a murder mystery). You are stuck on a cruise ship with several other players and you must all play a cat-and-mouse game of murder and mayhem at the behest of the mysterious Mr. X.

The ship is divided into decks, accessible via stairs and elevators. Some zones are patrolled by NPC guards and video cameras - if you have a weapon drawn (let alone use it to kill someone) in these areas you will immediately be arrested and jailed for 30 seconds or so. Your weapons will be stripped away and you will restart outside the brig.

The zones which aren’t patrolled, however, are anything-goes. Which creates an interesting set of challenges and opportunities. I was able to avoid death more than once by running to a red zone. And that brings me to another interesting aspect of The Ship’s play style: pacing.

All the players in the game move slowly, carefully walking down corridors or slinking around corners. You are able to run using the shift key (like Half-Life), but you are tied to a visual fatigue counter, so you must sprint wisely. Slowing the game down like this, I’ve found, makes it a lot more challenging - you can’t just chase someone down - you have to know the deck layout so you can take shortcuts - which often results with you waiting for them around a corner. I actually jumped once or twice from having the surprise of having this tactic pulled on me.

Add to this the pacing required by the Needs system. It works just like the Sims: make sure to eat, read and poo regularly or suffer the consequences.

If you are considering getting this game, I must caution you that not all the multiplayer servers may be for you. The deathmatch servers are exactly what their name implies, but as you spawn in a killing zone and have to open a container to get your initial weapon, spawn camping is rife. I however, enjoyed the deathmatch - but I got used to dieing really quick. Servers in the “Hunt” gameplay mode are more like the single-player game.

And even if you find you don’t like any of the multiplayer, your $5 won’t be wasted because so far I found the single-player portion of the game superbly made. In fact, the single-player portion of the game alone easily justifies a $15 or $20 price tag.

All in all, I am kicking myself now for not buying this game earlier. This has the same Team Fortress 2 addictiveness and ingenuity (and cartoonishness) that made me fall in love with that game. And it is a perfect counterpoint to TF2 owing to it’s (relatively) slow pacing and need for methodical stalking of your opponents.