If you’ve ever wondered what could be worse than doing your day job, I dare you to try being pest control for a gigantic luxury cruise ship.
After an earlier PC release, Australian developer Daniel Caddy has brought Ship’s Cat to PlayStation 5 — a third-person action-adventure game that is as curious as it is frustrating, albeit with plenty of charm.
Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
One of my simple rules in life is that when you’re presented with an opportunity to be a cat, you take it. In Ship’s Cat, you play as a polite tabby hired to perform a task that only cats can do well: hunt and kill mice.
After boarding a large ship, an employee lets you out of your crate and you’re free to wander around. You report to your superior in the Pest Control office, just in time to clear his rodent-ridden room.
Before you know it, casually running around killing mice starts to feel like a mystery as each mouse you kill leads you deeper into the depths of the infestation. This is no ordinary pest control job.
The problem you inherited is bigger than you realise, and certainly worse than you could have imagined. You begin to ask yourself what happened to the last cat, remembering the humans saying that they hope you “do better than the last one”.
The game is quite light on story but takes a rather unexpected turn, which kept me on my toes and eager to find out what happened next.
Cat and Mini-Golf: Working Hard or Hardly Working?
The level designs and world-building for Ship’s Cat were quite creative and made for some very amusing moments. It was easily my favourite aspect of the game. Passengers appear to be here on vacation, enjoying the extravagant facilities that the ship has to offer from sprawling lounges, a pool deck, mini-golf course, bar, shopping mall, aquarium — you name it.
Although the passengers and crew moved unnaturally and judged you with their vacant stares, I enjoyed eavesdropping in on their frivolous conversations. If you’re lucky, some passengers express their appreciation and will pat you for getting rid of nearby mice. Others aren’t as kind — clearly not cat people.
Apart from exterminating the mice themselves, you are required to deal with the aftermath of their rampage. These include containing fires from damaged wires, checking on passengers in their cabins, or simply unlocking doors for the other employees because they are incredibly incompetent.
A Struggle to Do Your Job
The core gameplay of Ship’s Cat is fighting mice, platforming and exploring. But on the PlayStation 5 version of the game, the experience left me a little disappointed.
Immersion levels were low as I continuously had to reload previous saves due to a bug or a glitch. These glitches occurred with the most basic of interactions, like using a window and often at complete random. The cat would often freeze or clip through walls to another room.
My other minor gripe is that Ship’s Cat felt fairly linear, with tasks like activating switches and advancing to certain areas driving story progression. There wasn’t a real reason to return to an area you’ve previously explored, and you couldn’t freely ride the lifts to any floor you want. At least it gave me reassurance that each area was sufficiently explored before moving on… I guess.
So You Have Chosen Death
While Ship’s Cat wasn’t afraid to introduce an impressive and entertaining moveset, combat wasn’t smooth sailing — noticeably clunkier in the second half. There were many instances where health regeneration was unreliable or perhaps delayed, as I found myself retreating a safe distance away from range only to still die.
Respawns were also a struggle. If I respawned in a bad position or I couldn’t cancel the idle animation in time before being swarmed by mice, I was a dead cat.
Towards the end-game, as the mice grew stronger, so did the disparity with enemy health. Sometimes mice would die instantly with a certain attack, other times they would survive multiple attacks. Additionally, some fights were meant to be avoided but there was no clear way to learn this except through death.
Should You Buy Ship’s Cat?
The world could always use more cat games, I say. If you prefer games with a bit more polish though, Ship’s Cat is likely to be a irksome time. However, it’s a movie-length action-adventure that really doesn’t demand a whole lot of your time or money. Ship’s Cat is for the players who don’t mind a game that’s a little rough around the edges — and aren’t scared of a few harmless mice.
Quest Daily scores Ship’s Cat:
6/10
Ships’s Cat is out now on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam.
Access to Ship’s Cat was provided to Quest Daily by the developer.
