Customer Reviews

The Ship

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this game for myself, but my son has taken it over (in the same way that my 15 y.o. daughter took over The Sims when I used to play it). He absolutely loves it. He said he would give it a "5" on all counts. He has no trouble meeting his Sims-like needs while moving around the ship and trying to kill his prey without someone else killing him. He has now moved to playing the game online with other players of The Ship, often winning. I, on the other hand, am still trying to learn how to maneuver my character and pull weapons to kill my prey without being seen by a witness. If seen, the police arrest you and throw you into the brig for a very short period of time. Even though I am not as adept at the game as my son, I still enjoy exploring the ship (one of several) to find weapons, buy clothes and food, etc. For only $20, I think it's a very entertaining game!

I'm still just playing the single player version, which is supposed to get me ready for on-line play. I can understand that, it takes awhile to figure out where you're going, where to find things to meet your needs, etc.

There are 2 things I absolutely hate about this game. First, fulfilling your "needs" is ridiculous. You spend 90% of your time doing that. I wouldn't have minded 3 or 4 needs, and only if it didn't take so long to fill them. Why can't you sit in a chair (which fills the "rest" need)
AND read your book (fills entertainment need) - doing two at the same time? No, you have to sit or lay down, wait about 30 seconds, then pick up your book and read for 30 seconds. By then, it's time to eat again. Eat, and soon you'll need a bathroom break. Don't forget to wash hands.

If you have to go from one deck to another, by the time you get where you want to go, half your needs need to be refilled. Imagine how frustrated I was when, after completing a difficult kill, I turned into a pile of dust and died because I couldn't find a bag of chips or something to eat. Die, start over. This is boring.

The other thing I hate is that you can't save when you want. I'm not very far into the game yet, and my character is getting "assignments" from a bartender. Bartender tells him who to follow, kill and rob, and we split the money. I managed to do the first 4 (after several tries). On my fifth victim, I keep getting arrested as soon as I pull out a weapon. Then I realized the display is indicating someone is watching. It's clearly a glitch, because I'm absolutely positive there is no one around. I even gave up on killing my target, and wandered all over the ship, went to my cabin, etc. Witness indicator stillon. Have to start all over with victim #1. This stinks.

There is one thing I LIKE about the game. When you kill someone, regardless of the weapon, the sound effects are awesome. The victim is silent, but very cool "thwack" noises and such.

If I can clear my eyewitness glitch, I'll keep playing. Hopefully it will get better. But I'm starting to think I'll be completely bored by the time I'd normally be ready to try it on line. The game could have been better if instead of fulfilling needs, the developers came up with something less annoying to keep people moving about. We could have been searching harder for weapons, money, anything for bonus points or whatever. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this game.

The Ship is primarily an online game. It comes with a single player mode (if bought on Steam will be separate than multiplayer) and a tutorial to help you learn the basics. The single player has you go through a series of "missions" which help you in your overall goal of escaping the ship. The multiplayer has several modes, arcade and server play. The arcade is just you vs AI and as you may have guessed server play puts you against real players and possibly AI (depending on the hosts preferences)

The selection of ships in the multiplyer is vast and creative. There are a few luxurious liners as well as a paddle-boat, a Japanese ship and dock, and even an ice cutter. The maps are beautiful and the music is great.

Weapon selection is vast as well. Anything from a revolver to a pincushion can be used (the more creative you get the more money you could win at the end of the round)

Overall this game is real good. You have to take care of yourself while hunting your prey and if you can not get them but still survive the round that is good enough. Worth he money, although I would recommend buying the game through Steam as it will be easier to transfer between computers.

First of all, it should be noted that you need access to the internet and a Steam account to play this game, but if you don't have a Steam account it's easy and free to get one. Now, the game is fun but slightly gory game that is fun to play by yourself or with others online. There are three modes: Story, Freeplay, and Tutorial.

Story-The story is that a Man named Mr. X is on this cruise ship that you are on, and he gives everyone on board the name of somebody to kill by any means that they wish. You set out to kill not only your target, but the person who is hunting you, and this evolves into a fun story w/ slight murder aspects!

Gameplay- This is a first-person game, and as the tutorial will show you, you move using the keyboard. W,A,S,and D are used to move, and I found this a bit tedious. Although sever games use this style, I prefer using the mouse, and I couldn't find an option to do this. Even though this was annoying, it didn't take away from the gameplay that much. In freestyle mode, there are 4 basic ways to play. First, you can play either with real people or against the computer. Second, you can play either on a team or by yourself. No matter what you choose, the object is to kill people, and you have a variety of weapons to do so with. You may use knives, frying pans, flare guns, and more. During this time, you have to evade attackers and security guards and fulfill basic needs, such as hunger and bladder. It is much like a first-person shooter, only without being forced to use guns, and with being forced to use the bathroom.

Graphics-The graphics in this game are well-done. They could be better, but they were very satisfactory.

Sound-The voice acting and sounds in this game were pretty good, as well.

Fun-This game is fun, but as you can probably tell, it is not for everyone. It is rated T for violence, as you have to murder people in the game. However, the murders are not too extremely bloody. Still, if you can handle violence, you will probably like this game.

Overall, this is a fun game with just a few downfalls such as the controls and the needs you have to fill up. However, these things can be overlooked if you really get into the game and have fun with it.

I must say that I was very disappointed in this game, after reading so many positive reviews. The single player game is awful, as it does not allow you to save where you want. I found myself having to repeat one mission (protect the ambassador)several times because I would die and have to start at the end of the previous mission.

The online game turned out not to be the cat and mouse game that I had hoped. Players tended to congregate near stairwells (I believe the ship was the Andria Doria) and killed fairly indiscriminately.

But it is too short for the single player story portion of it. I sincerely wish they'd made that part of it more in depth. But, I do realize that it basically is just there for us to familiarize ourselves with the game play. The part where we have to maintain our needs can be a little frustrating when all you want to do is kill your current prey and move on, but I do like that aspect of the game also. It is an added challenge that I believe helps the game rather then hurts it. Without this extra challenge the game would be far too easy.

The real fun is to be had in the multi-player sections of the game, which gives this game endless replay value. There are several different modes to the multi-player section, and several different maps (each ship is unique). I haven't been playing all that long yet and prefer to play against the computer for now. Once I've better honed my hunting skills I will go out into the ship against other players. Then lookout!!! muhahahha

This game is the coolest game. There are a couple of problems with it, but they can be generally overlooked. First of all, if you are playing this game for the singleplayer mode, then you are not going to like it especially much. The singleplayer mode is fun, but extremely easy and short. The game can be beaten in about two hours.
The game on multiplayer is the best. While some experience must be gotten playing the game against the computer before attempting the online version, even the computer is fun to play against. The computer can be really dumb sometimes, but on average is normally intelligent. The multiplayer has several modes, but the best two to play are the regular hunt mode, and the deathmatch mode. The hunt mode is what the game is all about. You must stalk you quarry and kill them without getting caught, or killed by the person that is hunting you. This can be hard when online.
The deathmatch mode is pretty fun, when all you wish to do is kill a lot of people, in various ways, constantly. Playing a deathmatch is like a shooter game.
The maps of the game are very creative, and each of the ships that can be played on is very well made, and they each have their secrets. It also depends on what you like.
The price of the game can't be matched, and most of the game is good, and I personally think that the multiplayer mode is amazing. The game concept is awesome. You should buy this game.

But seriously, who wants to be that? No one ever made a movie about a hit-man who can't get from one end of a cruise ship to the other without having to eat, drink, [..], wash his hands, read a magazine, dance, and sleep. Why not? Because no one would watch that movie. That movie would suck.

I mean it - you actually have to do all of those things or end up dead, and you have to do them frequently or you will parish. Really, Mommy? If I don't wash my digital hands after taking a digital dump, I'll die? They all have their own prompts going off at different times - it's like stalking prey while strapped with ten pagers going off constantly. The thought behind the needs system is that it keeps the game moving by forcing players to move around the boat - but that's where the game designers misjudged. There is a big difference between keeping the players moving and keeping the gameplay moving. I found that actual gameplay ended up taking a distant back seat to the interminable "feeding of the beast" required of the needs system, and that's a shame, because I really enjoyed just about every other aspect of this game - especially the environment and atmosphere design.

I just bought this game on VALVe's Steam service. It's very entertaining and hillarious. The graphics are beautiful, what I would expect from the Source Engine. It has an homage to Half-Life in the form of a crowbar, very funny.

This game is built on the Steam engine, so my advice is steer clear. What this means is that the DVD you buy doesn't have the game on it -- it has Steam, which is a nasty spyware-like lurker that sits on your PC running continuously. So first you install Steam, then you let it update itself. THEN you can type in your serial number and download the game, for which you have to be online of course -- my connection is poor, so this took about 4 hours. THEN you can finally play the game. Except that Steam crashed, then wouldn't start, then wouldn't run without an active Internet connection (as it's supposed to). After several reboots, I finally got the game to go -- for a few minutes, then it crashed. That seems to be as far as I can get. I've had this kind of problem with every other Steam game I've tried -- never again.