Great Lakes Simulator

The description indicates that you get to "drive" freighters through the Great Lakes. I guess if your definition of "drive" means changing the throttle and camera, then that's accurate. It would be cool to see some things like: 1. Steering 2. Planning out a new route 3. An active economy 4. Ship ownership/trading 5. Multiplayer 6. Better graphics 7. A tutorial 8. The ability to walk through and around the ship for things like maintenance, crew care, etc 9. The ability to jump to nearby ships, or at least identify them My 5-year-old son LOVES Great lakes freighters, and I was really looking forward to being able to set up a shipping company with him, and combat the dynamic weather systems and waterways of the Great Lakes as we plan out our routes, and fight to turn a profit with our massive iron hauler, but this game just didn't deliver. I am a massive fan of the Farming Simulator series, and I was really looking forward to finding something similar here, as that series takes a fairly mundane, repetitive, and time-consuming activity, and makes it incredibly fun and engaging. This...was not that. This is, for better or worse, an incredibly under-detailed set of videos documenting several ship routes with very little extraneous information provided. I hesitate to even classify it as a "game". The textures are extremely low quality for a game released in 2021, they tear constantly when you zoom in to view passing ships or countryside, you can see the rails the ships travel on if you rotate the camera underwater, and the "HUD" is little more than developer details overlaid on the screen (although it does show you your current throttle setting). I was incredibly disappointed at how lackluster this was. If there is one saving grace, it's that my son, loving freighters as much as he does, was happy watching the passing ships and tooting the horn, but even he asked why the ships looked weird (due to the tearing textures).

The concept is nice... The interface and execution failed. The graphics are pretty bad - 2001 era maybe - and there are so many problems with text not showing on the screen, the controls being bad, etc.

I rarely if ever leave reviews for games or sims I play, but I feel compelled to leave one for Great Lakes 'Simulator'. First, the only ship currently available is a 'salty' (salt water ship). While I enjoy the occasional ocean-going vessel, this is a huge disappointment for me, as there are a lot of 'lakers' that the developer could have (and should have) chose to launch the 'sim'. Rumor has it he is working on other models, but for $20, so far this is a deal-breaker for me. I don't wish to wait around for months (or years) for other models to venture around the lakes on. Second, I would hardly call this a simulation. It's more like a jump on the boat and kick back and enjoy the cruise kind of thing. I was expecting a bridge view with workable controls, but nope, you won't find that here. The views of the ship are generic, and there is no walk around mode or a view from inside the bridge. In fact, I have yet to be able to even steer the boat. It seems to follow a predetermined route. So much for the 'sim' part of the program. Third, the graphics are not that good considering this is nearly 2022. And, if you are running an average system, the frame rates are horrible. No wave action, wake, etc. Overall, save your money (I wish I had) and hope that either a) the developer improves the sim considerably, or b) wait for someone else to pick up the baton and cross the finish line that this sim falls well short of.

Pros: 1. a cool concept and the only Simulator that I know of that allows you to sail cargo ships Neutral: 1. The only ships right now are salties 2. The graphics aren't anything to write home about Cons: 1. Low FPS 2. Its an on rails game more than it is a simulator. By that I mean you have little actual control over the vessel and are just along for the ride. 3. The UI needs some work, a lot of the text is unreadable as it goes off screen I'm interested to see the continuation of this project and hope that the Developer continues to work on this game. Making it as great as it could be.

This is a game that I was really looking forward to getting. There were a couple posts on some Great Lakes shipping forums that I follow and it looked pretty interesting. I thought the screen shots were preliminary shots and not the final product. I thought it would include at least one classic Great Lakes freighter. Nope. I thought the graphics would be better. Nope. I thought there would be some sort of gameplay. You can't even steer the ship. The controls for the game were pretty clunky. Overall, a very disappointing experience.

Poorly designed game but a great concept. Would be nice to have a ships wheel and a status message or something to indicate the keys pressed were doing anything (for example, the anchor - is it going up or down? Is it up or down?) Choppy video and the graphics are from the early 2000s. Please improve ASAP.

This is ...just terrible. I know it is billed as a "simulator" and not a game, but it isn't a game, and it isn't even a simulator. Hardly interactive stuttery screen saver, perhaps. You cannot control any of the ships, I don't even see a way to choose your ship, except by choosing a different route on the clunkiest UI I've ever used. I still can't figure out how to speed up time, so it looks like if you want to finish a trip, its just days of looking at low res ca. 2000 graphics. Huge overprice for what it is, great concept but terrible execution.

You cannot pilot the ships and this makes the game pretty pointless. I've been waiting a long time for a ship simulation game based on the Great Lakes, so this was quite a disappointment.

Look, I'm not going to say whether the game itself is necessarily bad or not, I will just be giving my opinion and any advice to people looking to play it. I've been looking forward to the release of this game for weeks now and quite frankly I feel slightly ripped off. $25 is far over what this game is worth as of now, $5 might even be a bit much. The description provided with the game is overly optimistic as well. There isn't much in the game itself but I did expect this, it only came out a day before I made this comment so I highly doubt it's up to its full potential just yet. However, if the game gets updates (which many are needed), there is a high possibility that this game will meet the expectations of the players. I'm only leaving a positive review because of hope, hope that this isn't the final result of what I and other boatnerds were looking forward to. TL;DR If you wish to play this game, wait, and just maybe it'll be worth it, but not now.