ery beautiful and varied game. User-friendly interface and interesting quests. Also in the game is a good optimization, worked out the fine details and beautiful design world.
Very fun game with a lot of potential, the game starts out kinda easy but ramps up the challenge after a short while with several quests and demands to rise in rank.
This is a game with a very unique subject and fun contracts, but you do not really get to control the ship yourself and the choices you make have too little influence.
TransOcean - The Shipping Company could be seen as a spiritual sequel to the old PC game Ports Of Call. For people interested in the world of shipping by sea and an interest for tycoon games this sounds like the great happening of 2014. And I would like to be straight forward and tell you that it is, as long as playing multiplayer with friends; isn't a must.
When playing you can choose from playing a campaign or too freely explore the game. I would recommend the campaign as it gives you the possibility to do tutorials and also gives you missions to complete. In the campaign you start-off by selecting your home port and buying your first ship. Early in the game you are locked to Europe and some 10+ ports. Each port have their own design and some also landmarks from their real counterpart. Later on you get access to the whole world and number of ports is increased to a total of 55 giving you enough to explore. When having all ship-classes unlocked there is 22 different types to choose from giving you good variation. Overall gameplay is fun and it's easy too be **** into the game and constantly saying: Just one more shipload! There are a few things missing though, just to mention one crucial: Multiplay. The developers say pricing is dependent on how others play but when playing you neither feel or count every single € to see differences. Another feature that would have been nice would be: Routes. The possibility to set up a route between two ports with predetermined cargo and assigning to specific ships to follow by automatic. But again, overall a very fun gaming experience.
As the year is 2014 and computer graphics have come long since the first release of Ports Of Call. Expectations is to find 3D-graphics with detailed water, objects and terrain. You do get them all and they do look quite nice for this kind of game. Together with the pretty menus you get an overall good looking experience. When it comes to performance my computer isn't the best for reference as I built it for games like Battlefield and Flight simulator. It do run very well on my system on highest settings and with the available amount of settings it should be possible to get it smooth even on an entry-level gaming computer or a more expensive home-pc/laptop.
In conclusion this is a fun, good looking, singleplayer tycoon game. It has good potential for the developers to add some more content trough DLCs or updates (did I say passenger traffic?) and will give you many hours of fun.
Surprisingly addicting and hard for me to stop playing. I can tell you from experience though, don't get the 2nd iteration of this game, as it's nowhere near as good as this one is, in fact they made it worse imo. Definitely get this one on a sale though to really feel like you got your moneys worth, as I don't think most people would find it worth the original price.
I loved Ports of Call both the original and XXL versions, so I went into this game hoping for more of the same but even though I played for many hours I found the game lacking in a few areas.
The world map really needs a zoom function as sometimes it can be hard to see the different ports, having to unlock ports is also frustrating especially the smaller ports when it is hard to find any contracts going there, a list so you are able to see the condition of your ships at a glance, a lit of ports and what they supply so I don't have to click on each one looking for a particular cargo, The missions your Investor gives you in career are stupid, they give you way too much to do in a short space of time, most times when you don't have the ship or equipment required, also the company contracts are never worth it as you will spend most of the money on fuel sending an empty ship back to the first port as there is never anything going there.
Graphic wise the game looks very good but as I said there is just not enough there to help you, a lot of info you need is missing, plus it is annoying to save up for a new ship, be near your goal and then have your investor take away most of your cash sometimes driving you deep in debt.
TL:DR, an ok game needs some more work to make it a good game.
The music is monotonous, the gameplay is varied enough, but the bloody customs on the free game **** just drives me **** mad.
Also, the game is too complicated. Unlike EIC, there's no automated functions except for assisted docking. Kind of not my cup of tea.
Needs a zoom function on the map for sure. I hope the second one is going to be better than this one.
I was interested in this game subject since I've played Ports of Calls for long, but there's nothing more than filling your ship with containers, undock, than fast forward time since the port of destination is reached, dock. Buy more ships, buy bigger ships, repeat. No strategy at all: the only dynamic prices are those of fuel, no rival companies, no multiplayer, no tankers, no ferries and definitively lack of anything related to seaports: some deep managing features would have been the the only reason to play more than a few hours.
It has exactly the same features of the original Ports of Call, I mean the 1987 Amiga version. In 2014 is not enough. I'm sorry.