If someone asked you to balance a dinner plate on your hand; then placed a bunch of marbles that have their own individual take on the concept of gravity on the plate; then they asked you to kindly manage to balance the plate in just the right way to cause them to fall in to pockets on the side of the plate; you'd have a fair idea of what to expect with Lifeboat by Fuel Games.

As the captain of the boat it's your duty to roll the ship's deck around to assist your oddly rotund set of passengers in to the tiny life-boats that surround the ship briefly before departing. It's hard to tell if the developers intended the controls to be so odd, but half of the amusement in the game does come from trying to deposit only a handful of the passengers only to tip half of them in to the cold-unforgiving ocean.

There's a surprising amount of detail in the audio for this game, though the 3D graphics don't share the same polish. The use of video and 2D graphics are extremely high quality, which makes the 3D seem so much worse. Passengers are hard to distinguish from the clutter on the deck of the boat and once they're in the water it's extremely difficult to tell if they can be saved or are drowning. Upgrades available each level can help, but it's a token gesture to an otherwise odd style of design aesthetic.

If you're looking for an arcade style challenge, you'll be getting a genuinely difficult one here. The more you play, the easier it gets (thanks to upgrades), but it's highly unlikely you'll be rescuing people with accuracy for a long time. A fun time-waster, but there are better on offer.