Coast Guard (PC) Review

Finn Asdair: professional coast guard, vigilant sentinel of the seven seas, and as bland as an IKEA wall shelf. If the doses of ship simulation and story-telling were as equal as they are supposed to be, this wouldn't matter, but since the simulation bit is stunningly simplistic, it does - and that's the first problem with Coast Guard; all characters, main and secondary, are just a bunch of dull, unimaginative bags of meat, who are impossible to connect to, or care whether they live or die.

The thing is that these walking cardboards actually partake in a pretty decent story revolving around a case of murder; a murder that took place somewhere in the ocean. Unfortunately, the writing is of bellow average quality, which, coupled with the hokey voice-acting, isn't exactly an encouraging thought. In fact, while the whole thing tries quite hard to sound and look very serious, it ends up having some sort of B-movie like aura - and not in a funny, Resident Evil, Duke Nukem, or BloodRayne way, either.

Considering the simulation aspect, as mentioned earlier, it's not adequate. Finn can drive around on a big mother ship or his smaller daughter boat, but, aside from speed and manoeuvrability differences, handling both of them is like controlling a motorboat in a Grand Theft Auto title. Sure, he can also enter first-person mode and walk around the various areas of the surprisingly well-designed bigger vessel and click on the actual wheel and levers to drive it manually, but it's not worth the hassle.

What's the concept here, though, and how fun is it? Almost all missions require: one, sailing to a certain point, and, two, doing something while still on water, or disembarking and starting playing the detective. Unfortunately, it all feels like a chore; a chore where finding clues means walking around like an idiot for a couple of minutes and gathering everything that can be picked up, and then talking with the various NPCs and exhausting all possible dialogue options in order for things to move on.

The overall direction doesn't let the plot shine, and the actual gameplay is boring at best, but, at least, is the whole thing challenging at all? Not really. There will be some annoying moments where the player will have to do an otherwise menial task in order to activate an event or dialogue option, but, for the most part, this isn't exactly an adventure that will entertain those who want to test their mental skills - in fact, the biggest trial here, is trying to cope with the bugs and broken controls.

Examples of Coast Guard's problems? Invisible walls around vessels, structures, or drowning castaways; glitchy and extremely stiff/clunky controls; and a camera that, many times, acts as it feels like, especially while walking around the mother ship in first person. In terms of bugs, there's only one that's game-crushing, but guess what? The final nail in the coffin isn't this, but the fact that while on a chapter, there's no way to save progress - great, huh?