Ghostship Aftermath
PC/Steam Review

The Good

• This game has a lot of potential based on the path the developer decided to take, however that's really where the positives end...

• The game does have a number of "scare tactics" in it, such as suspenseful sound effects, random events that can catch you off guard, "flashlight in the dark" effects, enemy noises where you may not know where they're coming from or an enemy rushing you before you expect it, silent enemies coming out of nowhere for a quick attack, silhouettes of enemies in the distance where you're not entirely sure what is headed your way, among other things; but all this doesn't matter much when the game isn't really playable (see The Ugly section)

The Bad

• No options whatsoever to change your controls. You either need to learn the controls from the diagram before you get into a game (as you can't bring that display up once in a game) or fumble with the controls until you learn them. I might suggest taking a screenshot of that screen & loading it on a secondary monitor or printing it out to help remind you what they are while in game.

• While the game does at least provide inverted vertical alignment (meaning Y-axis on your mouse), it does not allow you to invert the rotation of weapons with your mouse wheel. I'm used to getting more powerful weapons by scrolling down on the mouse wheel, unfortunately the game is set to do this the other way around & there's no way to change it...

• Aiming down the sight of weapons has a rather odd orientation to it, giving you a crosshair at the point of impact rather than changing the viewpoint of your gun or placing the crosshair in the middle of your screen where it should be. Also it's sometimes hard to gauge when that floating crosshair is getting placed on an invisible wall rather than an enemy you may be trying to hit.

• The game seems a bit slow to me, but perhaps that was done on purpose...

• Vertical alignment seems odd; for the most part you are locked to a level perspective on the same level you are on, but move the mouse far enough up or down to get out of that choke-zone & you're will look up or down as if looking at another level. The vertical alignment is by no means standard however & is going to feel odd for people that are used to proper FPS games...

The Ugly

• You will often times run into enemies before you even find a weapon & with no way to attack even with melee attacks, often times this results in your death as soon as you start. With often times a lengthy opening scene, you'll find that your runs can often times be a HUGE waste of time...

• You will find yourself running into environmental obstacles every once in a while, sometimes you may end up finding yourself getting stuck either on the environment or behind something after a random event, leaving your only option to restart the game...

• Once in a while you'll get bugged enemies that can either get stuck in the walls or in an attack animation & often times they will be unkillable. This would not be such a huge issue if not for the fact that sometimes they get stuck right in the path of where you need to go & the result is once again you have to restart the game.

UPDATE:  After the developer decided to respond to this negative review (previously on Steam), which was targeting mainly the Story mode (with a downvote of the review, no surprise there), he suggested that I give the Instant Action mode a try. I did & there are a few things to add in regards to this mode:

The Good (Instant Action)

• With the addition of this mode, you do at least have a playable version of the game without game breaking bugs (at least none I saw when I attempted to test it, with perhaps an exception to getting stuck on the environment; I've learned to avoid such locations however, so this isn't something I've attempted to retest just yet).

• You start with an arsenal of weapons in this mode, so you won't be running into enemies before you even have a means to defend yourself.

• This next point could be considered good or bad, depending on your viewpoint: This mode completely bypasses the opening, storyline & commentary throughout the game. Some people may enjoy this, however others may not want to waste time going through it. In my personal opinion, I only had a problem with it when I had to go through it, then the game got bugged in Story mode only leaving me to have to restart the game. I don't entirely mind the Story elements of the game, but it turns out to be a huge waste of time when you can't actually get through the game due to various bugs in Story mode, so the lack of these features in exchange for a playable version of the game was an acceptable trade-off for me.

The Bad (IA)

• You may start with weapons in this mode, but keep in mind you are also going to see enemies much earlier than you would in Story mode. Expect an increased difficulty in IA mode with multiple enemies coming at you at the same time where you may have had them limited at early points in the Story mode. The first time I started this mode, I literally got killed within 5 seconds of starting... People who like a challenge may enjoy the increased difficulty, but it's really up to them how much of a difficulty increase they are willing to tolerate at an early point in the game...

Final synopsis

The game may have potential, but at this time I can't really say it's worth spending money on until some of the major bugs are fixed. Every time I attempted to play the Story mode, I would always have to restart the game, to the point that I didn't even feel like playing the rest of the time while trying to gain cards for the game because you couldn't really get anywhere in the game with having to constantly restart it...

UPDATE:  After the developer contacted me on this review, I retested the game in IA mode & found that at least this mode was playable, although with it's own little quirks... I still can't say I recommend the game because the Story mode is in such poor shape (as well as various bugs in IA mode, but none that I could see were game-breaking), but at least there is a playable mode in the game that isn't going to make you feel like you're entirely wasting your time or your money if you've already purchased it.