When I first heard about Ship Simulator I was really excited, finally a proper Ship sim. Even if I have enjoyed flight simulators I have not spent so much time with them, I rather played Train Simulator and Trainz. So I grabbed the demo and tried it out, guess if I enjoyed it? I bought the game and spent many hours with it, however I felt it did lack lot of features which could make it even better. So I have been looking forward to the 2008 version for a while now.
Payment, download and installation went smoothly, without any trouble at all and the first thing I noticed when the menu appeared was that it felt much more professional. The menues are good looking and easy to navigate through, so thats a good start. The next positive factor was the scene where you change the weather and time, excellent that you can see the changes in the background.
What I have been looking most forward to was the weather and waves which I did miss dearly in the previous version, so I chose the ocean and then maxed out on bad weather. I liked how the boats behave in the rough sea, water splashing and the sounds of wind and rain but the first negative thing was the rain, which looks extremely unnatural, more like something you have pasted in than real rain. That is a shame since the other weather effects like different clouds, sun, moon, stars, wind and daylight changes are excellent. While the introduction of waves is a huge step forward and makes the game much better there is still plenty to do. Every wave looks the same and if you glance around you it gives an unrealistic feeling. However it is a good foundation to do something better of.
The locations have been vastly improved, San Francisco, Marseille and Southampton are excellent choices and adds a nice range of variation to the game. Rotterdam, Hamburgs, Phi-Phi and New York are still fun areas to play in and makes the total variation of locations impressing. While the locations may lack a little in life they are well done and large.
Sound is always an important factor in simulations, the sounds in SS2008 is a bit mixed. The surrounding souns, from birds, the wind, the harbour noises are all good, as is the sounds from the ship. But I would liked more sounds from waves and the horns are only taken from a keyboard which sounds a little homemade.
As with the locations the range of ships is impressing and the models are well-made with a sense of fine details. You can walk around on them, which is a nice feature and adds a new level to the game. To be able to choose from Titanic to powerboats, tugs and large oil tankers is enjoyable. What I would like to see in the future is an increasted control, of lights, the engine and so on, also while the steering is mostly good it has some flaws on certain ships. A new feature is the damage model, something many fans have been asking for, this is a complex thing to imply but yet the team behind SS2008 gave us this. So how good is it? I would say it's quite nice and adds realism to the game, however you cannot sink the ships but overall its a nice feature.
The graphics have been slightly improved but not any major changes, which is allright since the graphics in the first ShipSim was excellent. You have some nice effects, especially the light is well-made, with the moon and sun making nice reflections on the water surface. Overall the graphics are good and worthy a fine game as SS2008 is.
When you add the missions and the possibility to make own mission and the fact that there will for sure be more content to download this game has taken a step forward. It is a quality game with tons to do, good graphics and good sound, however there is still lot of things to before we have the perfect ship simulator.
+ A huge collection of ships with nice details in different ranges
+ Nice choices of locations
+ The introduction of open sea
+ Damage models
+ Excellent weather effects
+ A nice variety of missions
+ Introduction of waves
- Rain looks bad
- All waves are the same
- You cannot sink the ships
- Lack of life in the scenary
Overall:
8/10
Excellent Ship Simulator, well worth the money but that still has things to improve.
