The Ship (PC)

Reviewed by

Brett Todd

on 07/26/2006

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Page 2

Five different modes of play offer variations on the above formula, but only three are really worth playing. Both the one-on-one duel and deathmatch modes seem ill suited to the deliberate style of play that The Ship is best at, so you're best off with elimination, a cautious game with players battling to be the last one alive; hunt, a free-for-all where you respawn again and again and are assigned different targets in timed rounds in a quest to accumulate a set amount of cash before the clock expires; and a solo-only arcade variant. Actually, you're just sort of stuck with arcade, a single-player option with moronic bots who prefer taking naps to trying to kill you, as it is crucial to learn the layout of the six relatively complex ship maps (which range from the small steamboat Atalanta and the little cruiser Batavia to huge luxury liners such as the Andrea Doria and the Cyclops) before venturing online against human opposition.

And online is where The Ship really sets sail. Gameplay is extremely addictive once you get over the learning curve and adjust to the more methodical pace, which requires more sneaking and feinting than the typical online shooter. It's tough to stop playing. You'll typically either get on a great run and not want to stop after whacking three or four victims in a row and accumulating some fantastic weapons. Or, you'll get offed foolishly a couple of times in a row while eating a bag of chips or peeing and furiously keep going to exact revenge.

Matches hinge on players taking the game seriously and going after only their targets, though, which means that you will frequently be sabotaged by jerks who want to play Lizzie Borden and hack everybody up with an axe. Lengthy time spent in the brig after each unauthorized kill does cut down on griefing, though, as does automatically booting players with negative scores (you're also fined for each unnecessary kill). Most matches feature a mature crowd of people out to play the game, not get their jollies out of wrecking things for everybody else. But there are still enough idiots out there that it's impossible to get through an hour of play without getting killed a couple of times for no reason by clowns who think they're deathmatching. Outerlight and Valve have a boot/ban system, but it doesn't seem to be enough to completely get rid of troublemakers.

There are some other quirks, as well. The server browser lists only the map and number of players in each game, skipping vital information such as the mode of play and the length of rounds. Kill descriptions in-game often drop the actual characters' names for ERRORNAME. The video sometimes stutters, online and off. Wash your hands once, and the water bubbles around your torso never go away, which makes you rather noticeable to victims and killers alike. And even though the art-deco visuals are stylish and the ships are gorgeously appointed with period furniture, interiors are often murky. It seems as if Outerlight was going for a vintage, sepia-toned appearance to enhance the quasi-1920s setting but took this idea too far and made just about everything brown and muddy.

Ship interiors are often beautifully appointed but awfully dim and murky.

Audio adds a lot of atmosphere thanks to old-time music parodies (listen closely to the lyrics) playing on cabin radios throughout each ship. But the actual murder mayhem often plays out in complete silence. Killings might as well be taking place in the vacuum of space. This can be very annoying, as you often can't hear the footsteps of some goon running up behind you (on a hardwood deck, no less) swinging a boat oar. Even gunshots are muffled. Someone can be blasting away at you from across the bow of a ship, and you might not even realize what's happening until you're a corpse.

But even while these problems are troublesome, they're minor. The Ship is one of the best and most innovative multiplayer games available right now, particularly at its cut-rate price of $20, and it is developing a considerable online fan base, so you can find a server loaded with players any time of the day or night. This is one cross-genre game that really deserves the hype.