Ship Simulator Extremes review -- here there be monsters

Ship Simulator Extremes is definitely extreme. Unfortunately, most of its extremes aren't good.

Ship Simulator Extremes is essentially a remnant of a largely bygone era in PC gaming: that of the 'hard core' simulation game in which virtually every other aspect of the game takes a back seat to accurate simulation.  Unfortunately, when fun, exploration, and accessibility are all but nonexistent, we're left with is not a simulation game, it's just a simulation -- and probably completely lost on anyone outside the very tiny niche at which it's aimed.

Note: In addition to this review, we took some annotated video of just one of our experiences in the game, which you can watch below. Another is also available on our Youtube channel.

All sim and no game make Jack a dull boy

And even that niche audience may have come to expect more from their simulations these days. Playing Ship Simulator Extremes is like brushing your teeth. Other than the ebb and flow of waves and the sound of some birds, the game is lifeless. It's a sterile, clinical exercise in maneuvering a variety of vessels through a linear series of objectives.

There is no sense that you're operating in the 'real world', there is no simple joy of exploring a living, breathing marine environment. Your vessels have no crew. There is no thrill of exploring the open ocean or steering through a deadly storm. And even if you could explore the world at large, you'll find it holds little to discover and even less to enjoy.

The only real joy to be had is the successful execution of maneuvering your ship from point A to point B. And while there are some occasionally interesting (and tricky) maneuvers that might occasionally peak your interest, you must frequently slog through long stretches of just watching your vessel chug through the water toward a dreary horizon.

Even the game's neat first-person mode, which lets you walk around your ship, is a wasted opportunity to provide more interactivity and a chance to explore. But there is no crew, nothing to interact with, and the game isn't even smart enough to 'autopilot' while you look around, so you can just as easily sink your ship while you're exploring your vessel.

Not just bleary, but buggy

In addition to the sterile, bleary, and highly linear game play, Ship Simulator Extremes is buggy. We crashed into an invisible ship (here's another video) once and sank. In another mission, an enormous container ship started severely heaving forward and backward -- it even smashed our tiny speedboat -- which miraculously didn't sink. Another time we apparently just took too long to get to an objective point, and the mission wouldn't advance, forcing us to restart.

There is no 'game', there is only simulation, and the onus is on the player to learn the game, play the game, and suffer for his or her mistakes. If you sink your ship, for example, Ship Simulator Extremes won't react and offer to restore a checkpoint or restart the mission. It will continue displaying the same dialog box with your objective.

And woe be to those who stray outside the game's rigid parameters. If you step outside the game's highly structured and linear objectives, you're taking your chances that the game will be smart enough to react appropriately. You may find yourself simply unable to advance a mission for no obvious reason.

Ship Simulator Extremes is also highly inaccessible and gamer unfriendly. Even if some of the game's marketing might have piqued your interest, unless you're a hard core boat simulation fan -- and that's a small club, most likely -- the game does nothing to invite the more casually inclined into its waters. There is no tutorial, the in-game user interface help is minimal, and the game doesn't offer many options for adjusting the level of simulation.

Overall

Although a sailing and marine simulator might potentially be rife with the joy of exploration in beautifully-crafted, diverse marine environments, Ship Simulator Extremes doesn't deliver that experience. Even if it is the greatest ship/sailing simulator the world over, it just isn't very fun to play. We can't recommend Ship Simulator Extremes for any but the most die-hard boat simulation fans, and we're doubtful that even that tiny niche of an audience would find the game to be compelling for long.

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