I have been playing it for the past day or so.
Here's my thoughts as my first job was on an offshore supply/anchor vessel like the one in the sim. I've been flying MS Flightsim since 95 and had just about every release since.
Sounds:
Could be a soundcard setting on my end, but some ships have no interior sound at all.
The horn sounds are simply aweful, I'd expect some real recordings of horns for a $51.00 USD sim, not a cheap casio keyboard trying to sound like a horn. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dying to have a horn, but it would be nice.
The engine sounds could be better. On the offshore anchor vessel, it basically uses the small tug engine sound, but with the container ship rumble/rattle sound. Basically all the engine sounds could use a lot of improvement.
Controls:
I have my Saitek Cyborg 3D stick configured for the controls. It would be nice to have the stick work the controls in walk around view, where I could control with the stick when at one of the side steering stations of big ships.
Offshore Rig:
Nice touch. It pulls incredibly slow. In real life the boats that I've worked on, we pulled at around 6-7 knots. This thing would take forever to pull to location. I like the heavy feel to it, but it's way to slow.
Overall:
I like it. I've been a sim fan for a while and don't get into any other games but sims. I can really see this growing into better things like being able to load your own cargo at the docks, unloading at the rigs, having other rigs in the gulf of Mexico etc. I saw a post that had a video of a transport ship that carries entire rigs, that would be nice to be able to submerge the ship and load rigs and other cargo on it like the real ones.
If VStep gives us some improvements in the patch(s) I think that they could have a long following like MS Flightsim. There needs to be a way that users can create new ships and scenery objects (like placing oil rigs etc). This will keep the sim alive for years to come. MS flightsim wouldn't be what it is today without the add-on community. Thus could be the same for Shipsim.
