The word 'pleasure' is often associated with a cruise. The word 'death' isn't, despite the amount of old folks who are generally on board. However, on Outerlight's cruise liners, death is a way of life, as every single player is a killer.

The Ship began life as a Half Life modification, and was popular enough to encourage the developer to polish it up in the Source engine and release it as a standalone downloadable game over Valve's Steam network.

It's an online, murder-mystery style, first-person shooter, which is multiplayer only, as while there might be a single player "bot" mode versus computer controlled opposition, the AI is so poor it's only useful for learning the level layouts.

The concept is simple yet pleasantly original. You're given a target player who you have to hunt across The Ship's various decks. When you find them, you kill them. Matters are complicated by the fact that someone has your name as a target, so you've got to watch your back constantly while you hunt.

However, other considerations are heaped upon this basic premise. As some of the various ship levels are huge, you're given the location of your quarry at thirty second intervals (otherwise the game would be more like hunting for a needle in a massive stack of needles). Similarly, your hunter receives updates on your whereabouts, so this encourages all players to move around and not just hide in a mop cupboard somewhere.

You also need to keep mobile to satisfy the game's "needs" system. After a while you'll start to get hungry or thirsty and will have to visit a restaurant or bar. After that, you'll soon need a trip to the gents or ladies. If demands like these are ignored, you'll eventually wet your pants and be followed everywhere by a cloud of flies... And if you don't reach a shower soon enough to clean that off, you'll die (of embarrassment probably).

This system can be a touch annoying in the "Elimination" mode, in which no respawning is allowed, as players are more cautious and the game's longer, so you can find yourself getting bogged down in satisfying multiple needs. On the other hand, there's nothing like raising your knife and cackling when you spot your quarry being forced to head for the shower room. The needs system prevents players from staying permanently in secure areas.

These are places where security cameras or guards are around, and drawing a weapon will get a player immediately arrested and thrown into the brig for a spell. Similarly, if too many witnesses (in the form of other players) see you pull a gun or a baseball bat out, you'll also get nicked.

Victims must be disposed of away from prying eyes, which means you might have to tail them for some time. However, a player can legitimately kill his hunter as well as his quarry, so if you're unsubtle about your stalking and give yourself away, you could be in trouble.

This can lead to exquisitely paranoid situations, where you're trying to covertly follow your victim, all the while keeping an eye on every single other person around in case they're your hunter, about to axe you in the back as you head into a deserted corridor.

This atmosphere of fear and anticipation makes for some extremely compelling first-person stalking, but The Ship isn't without issues. Elimination games can be painfully long if you're killed early on, and there are occasional interface bugs and graphical glitches, but the bigger problems come in the form of griefers.

Despite the penalties for unwarranted killing, there are people who don't care about being at the bottom of the scoreboard and just eliminate everyone in their path to cause frustration. There are also low-lives who take great pleasure in trapping others in rooms for ages by blocking the door. These idiots aren't prevalent on The Ship's servers, but they're a problem to be aware of.

This is a highly entertaining first-person stalker which is definitely worth the tenner asking price. There are problems with griefers and the odd bug, but these issues will hopefully be addressed with patches in the future.