Virtual Skipper 3 Hands-On Impressions

Sailing may not be one of the major simulation genres, but it does exist thanks to the Virtual Skipper series, which first hit the water in 2000. The Virtual Skipper series gives you the helm of a sleek racing yacht and lets you exercise your seamanship skills. The third game in the series, Virtual Skipper 3, is currently available in Europe, and it will soon hit US shores, thanks to publisher Enlight Software. We recently had a chance to get our hands on a copy of the game for a quick run.

Virtual Skipper 3 is a pretty faithful simulation of the competitive sailing life. You can choose from a number of different classes of yachts in six detailed and modeled settings, including San Francisco, the Isle of Wight, Sydney, Auckland, and La Trinite sur Mer. The single-player mode in the game allows one-on-one matches or fleet races of up to eight, and you can easily customize nearly every parameter, from the wind strength and direction to the condition of the seas and weather.

While a working knowledge of sailing isn't necessary, it will definitely help, because the game lacks an in-game tutorial to teach newcomers the necessary steps to sailing. You can glean what you need to know from the manual, but the best way to learn is by doing and accruing experience. Thankfully, there are several helpful sailing aids in-game, including a color-shifting arrow that indicates both the direction the wind is coming from and the efficiency of your sails. The challenge is to match the best sail to the weather conditions and then steer your yacht to take maximum advantage of the effect of the wind. When you're sailing dead-on against the wind, the arrow is red, and when you've got the wind behind you, it turns blue. During the course of a race, you'll make hundreds of tiny course corrections to maximize the wind's effect, but simultaneously, you'll have to worry about charting the straightest course to better your sailing time. You'll also need to figure out how to maneuver most efficiently around buoys and other markers, during which the dynamic of wind and sails changes dramatically.

Virtual Skipper 3 features a new graphics engine that renders the water in gorgeous detail. The game now models water transparency, so you can see the sea floor in shallow areas, as well as foam against the rocks and the puff and slack on the water's surface. The yachts themselves look beautiful, from the different skins that you can apply to them to the billowing of the sails in the wind. Tiny crewmen man your yacht, and you can see them running around, rigging sails and plopping themselves down on one side of the boat or another to add ballast to that side. The physics in Virtual Skipper 3 have also been improved, so you can even struggle at times to prevent your yacht from overturning in high winds or choppy seas.

The game ships with a course editor, so you can create the sailing venue from scratch. This isn't as simple as it sounds, because you can choose everything from the setting, currents, waves, rock formations, obstacles, and more. Meanwhile, the multiplayer allows you to sail in a variety of online regattas and custom races. And in keeping with realism, the game incorporates an improved version of the International Racing Federation rules.

Virtual Skipper 3 looks to be a promising game for those of you who have always wanted to be Dennis Connor, sail in an America's Cup-style race, or just putt around on the water. The US version of the game should ship this August.