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To describe The Ship, we should start with this passage from the game manual: The Ship is a single- and multiplayer murder game with a unique set of game rules." Actually, multiplayer games are much the same one to the other. I don't really find anything unique about them.

This is another in a long line of first-person shooters. The Ship is designed primarily to be a multiplayer game with a small single-player scenario thrown in. The single-player scenario is basically a training ground for those who want to practice before being thrown to the wolves.

Anyone will tell you that the best opponent is a human opponent. Humans are more resourceful and ruthless than artificial intelligences. Where else can you commit murder and mayhem on another human being without all the blood, gore, and possibility of your own execution or life imprisonment?

The plot is quite simple. You find yourself on a ship. The ship is owned by the mysterious Mr. X, and players find themselves on board one of the cruise liners in his fleet after a lucky win in a competition." The ship crew asks the passengers to gather into one of the rooms with a screen. Mr. X addresses the passengers from some unknown remote location.

"As one of many recipients of a free ticket, you arrive on board the ship to find there's a catch to your luxury cruise. You are coerced into a brutal Hunt to indulge Mr. X's fantasies, under threat of death for not only yourself, but also your family. Your only chance of escape, to save yourself and your family is to play the Hunt and win."

The ship is in a remote location far at sea and far from any known sea lanes with no chance of rescue. So the coercion is that you either fight or die. The plot centers on the multiplayer game of player versus player.

You cannot just kill everyone on the ship. Mr. X will fine you for this. You must only kill someone trying to kill you or someone who is designated as your quarry.

You also can be fined for trespassing in areas of the ship that are off limits to the passengers. If you ever went on a cruise ship or an ocean voyage, you quickly learn that there are crew areas where the passengers are not permitted.

These off-limits areas include the kitchen, the engine room, the bridge and other behind-the-scenes areas, such as those controlled by a receptionist. You are not welcome in the sick bay unless you are a patient. You are not welcome in the brig unless you are a prisoner.

The style for The Ship is what I would call European graphic adventure game. The graphics are 3-D, but they have that burnt-sienna feel of the stylized drawn animated graphics that was in some of the comical graphic adventures that came from Europe.

The style was set by the nonfunctional cocktail lounge demo of the game, which appeared at 2005 trade shows. The game is beautiful. Kudos to Debbie Keys for the beautiful environmental art used in the backgrounds.

Nick Sawyer's character art is done very well. The characters have a humorous stylized look that I enjoyed. The clothing realistically hangs on the anatomically drawn models and must have taken a good bit of talent and work. Mark Holmes' animation also is first-rate. The characters move realistically. The animation is smooth and lifelike.

Rebecca Parnell's sound design work is first-rate. You can see why she won the BAFTA award for sound for her other work. Sound, which includes music, sound effects and voice acting, was first-rate.

The interface is well-developed. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen is your picture. Your picture will tell you your name, the money in your bank, cash in hand and your location.

Your quarry picture is in the bottom right of the screen. The name displays when you are assigned a quarry. The last known location of your quarry also is shown, if you know where the quarry was last. Hot information is red in color, which fades through the spectrum to blue as the information gets cold.

At the bottom of the screen is a compass. Around the quarry picture are several icons that indicate the risk you take. Icons for trespass, camera surveillance, witnesses and security personnel warn you that you might be caught trespassing or seen killing your quarry. Being seen murdering and trespassing can land you in the brig.

I would have preferred a mini-map system instead of the mapping system used. The map known as deck plans is brought up with the "P" hot key. The map partially obscures your view of the world. You can be killed while the map is up, so you should probably have a copy of the map printed out to keep next to you.

There are 27 weapons that you can use to commit mayhem. Mr. X awards bonuses for killing creatively. Anyone can kill with a knife or a gun. The "M" hot key pop-up money for kills constantly updates the constantly changing money awarded for killing with each weapon.

I found the costumes that you could wear to change your look and confuse the competition very interesting. Just like finding different weapons, you can find and wear different clothes, making it more difficult for your hunter to find you. You constantly have to be looking over your shoulder for your hunter while you are hunting your quarry.

Like most shooters, your character moves with the "WASD" keyboard pad. The interface makes judicious use of hot keys for weapon access, inventory, zoom, sprint, crouch, jump, drop weapon, inventory, leader board (multiplayer), quest objectives (single player) and deck plans. You also can throw weapons, unholster weapons and use weapons with the three mouse buttons.

The game can be played in single-player modes: tutorial, story (single-player scenario) and arcade (single-player kill fest). The multiplayer modes include hunt, elimination, duel and death match. Most online players prefer either hunt or elimination. Hunt seems to be most popular, since elimination mode players fill up the online boards with complaints about lack of players.

I did find one aspect of the game annoying: Each character has eight needs to eat, drink, sleep, socialize, be entertained, shower, "pee" and "poo." As you play the game, each of these needs circles starts counting down the time until the need becomes unbearable and will affect your ability to fight and defend yourself.

The color of the need circle moves changes from green to red to purple. Once purple you must take care of the need immediately or "suffer the consequences." I found the "need" to run around every few minutes satisfying needs annoying.

You have to find bathrooms, food, drink, a place to sleep, entertainment, a shower and people to talk to. You actually spend more time satisfying needs than you do hunting your quarry and looking over your shoulder to defend against your hunter. Satisfying these needs to me was an unnecessary and frustrating complication to an already difficult game.

Until you memorize the ship, you spend all your time checking the map and the time to see when and where you can get food, drink and socialize. The needs game feature creates an unfair advantage to someone who has memorized need-satisfying locations. New players will be killed over and over while they are checking the map locations and running around satisfying needs.

Like many multiplayer shooters, those who succeed have to memorize the game maps and critical locations. This is not a casual game and can be very frustrating to players who don't have the time or the reflexes to compete. The satisfaction in defeating and humiliating your fellow man has limited appeal to game players.

Another downside to the game is that you often find the game lobbies where you wait for other players without enough people to support a good game. Playing with three people seems to take the fun out of the game, since you know who is hunting you and who you are hunting.

Some online forums also have players lamenting the lack of noncombatant non-player characters (NPCs) in the game. Deserted ships are not as much fun as those realistically peopled with NPCs who could be witnesses. Other online complaints center on bots. The game uses non-player character AI to fill in for humans and does not tell you which players are human in matches in which three or fewer human players show up. The players would like to play in games in which there are mostly humans and fewer hunter/quarry bots.

The Ship gets high marks for animation, sound, graphics, innovation and interface. The biggest problem seems to be in the area of lack of combatants and the needs feature of the game. I loved the look and feel of the game. I look for more games from Outerlight. I recommend this game highly to those who like multiplayer player versus player games and who want something a bit different from the normal team versus team or doom deathmatch. I found the single-player game a bit frustrating and lacking in plot for those, like me, who like graphic adventures.