I read the official review of this game, and although mostly accurate, I think it had a bit of a negative Nancy spin to it which baffled me a bit, so I thought I would make my own review of the game which is just that bit less biased.
The deal with this game, in a nutshell, is that it's basically four games in one.. The scope of this game is absolutely massive and consequently, there are a few rough edges. So it's not perfect, but it's close, and by that I mean it's close to being literally gaming perfection..
What is this game?
If you don't really know what this game is, I'll explain it quickly. It's a big, WW2, naval based war game. You have huge "maps" which are generally about 90% water with a bunch of islands, and they vary in size. There are two teams, and each start on opposite corners of the map. You start with a base on an island of it's own, and you can build ships and planes once you have an airport too. One of the ships you can build is a landing craft, and the aim is to build some of these and send them off to capture other islands. When you capture an island, you get points which you can use to build more ships, there are some other bonuses to be had too. You have a big tactical map that looks directly down on the entire game area, and you can select your units in here and then click where you want them to go on the map. So it plays just like a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game. Unlike all of these other RTS games though, you have direct, intimate control over ANY of the units, whenever you want...
How do you play?
So to start off you build a bunch of landing craft and send them off to capture stuff. Then personally I build a huge battleship, a couple of smaller frigate type ships to accompany it, and then I build some planes. There are literally dozens of planes and ships in this game that you can build. From small speedboats that can fire a bunch of rockets/torpedoes, all the way up to enormous battleships and destroyers, and everything in between. It's the same with planes. Small fighters that just have a gun, all the way up to massive bombers that can carpet bomb an entire island in one pass. And again, everything in between. There are dive bombers that can drop a torpedo, or bombs of various weights, or fire rockets, or that can drop depth charges to blow up submarines and you can land them on the sea. There is a lot of choice...
So you use the map to quickly send stuff to places, but you then can take direct control of any of these units whenever you want. You can open the map and just click a unit then close the map and you are in that unit, or you can just press the Q/E keys to cycle through all the units one by one. This ultimate control really hit me when I was flying a dive bomber at an enemy island. You can actually be in the cockpit, or have the camera behind the plane. I dogfighted past some fighters and made it to the enemy island. I dived down and dropped my bomb right on top of their headquarters blowing it to pieces. Their flak cannons had torn me to pieces though in the process, so I quickly turned and went full throttle away from the island. As I soared higher and higher above the deep blue sea, I looked ahead and saw a massive aircraft carrier, two battleships, six smaller frigate type ships, a couple of landing craft, and about a dozen planes all flying around either waiting or dogfighting. It looked like an iconic moment from a war movie, or from a real war... but it dawned on me that every single unit I could see, I had personally built, I had personally sent to wherever it was at that point, and I could personally take control of. So I did, I tabbed out of my damaged plane and sent it back to the carrier, and next took control of the battleship and went in to finish off that island and make way for my landing craft.
One minute you are dogfighting, the next you're screaming towards a battleship in a small, fast torpedo boat, unloading your torpedoes, and then the next minute you are in a destroyer, shelling the hell out of an enemy cruiser. It all fits together perfectly, and the fact that the graphics are so beautiful, just makes the entire experience so epic.
Is it hard or easy?
Everything has simple arcade controls. Flying the planes is not really like a flight sim, there are no oil gauges, flaps or air brakes. You can stall if you go too slow though, you can bank and you can roll the plane left and right, and control the throttle. The ships and submarines are the same. You can control them with WASD keys, as easy as driving a car in Grand Theft Auto, and then you use your mouse to aim the guns and cannons and you click to fire them. Coloured dots show you when the gun is able to be fired and it goes red if your target is too far away or not at the right angle. So basically, everything is fairly easy to jump in and start playing, but it takes some time to get good at it. For example, you can hop in a submarine and immediately start surfacing and diving and turning however you want, and firing torpedoes, but to actually HIT something with a torpedo, takes good timing and coordination. There are no heat seeking missiles in WW2, so to hit a moving ship that's quite far away, takes accuracy and timing that only comes with some practice. Not only that but you need awareness that comes with experience, so you know to dive when planes armed with depth charges are coming for you! So it's easy to pick up and play, but has enough depth that it takes time to master it. I have read some people talking about how it's hard to figure out how to play at first. These people are wusses quite frankly. In the good ole days, gamers would fail and fail and fail some more, and all it would do, would give them more determination to step up their game! These days it seems that if people don't INSTANTLY do everything perfectly, then they burst in to tears and pee their pants simultaneously. Rant aside, this game gives you a practice mode where you can sail/fly around bombing static ships and air balloons and do whatever you need to do to learn. No, it doesn't spell things out you like some games for young audiences, but it really isn't hard at all, and you'll be flying around and dropping bombs in 5 minutes. I personally changed a bunch of the controls which took 5 minutes or so of trial and error until I was happy with it, then I took another 5 minutes to get good at every unit with my new controls.
So, controlling the units is easy, but getting good with them takes some time, and there is the whole RTS element which is where a lot of the challenge comes from. Not only do you have to build the right units at the right time, but it's vital that you send them to the right places at the right time too. If you send your landing craft off alone to capture an island, they will likely get blown up by enemy fighters, bombers, subs, or ships. You can't just "give it a destroyer" either, because a lone destroyer, although powerful, is a bit of a sitting duck. You have to mix and match units and work your entire force together, just like all good RTS games.
So basically, on the surface, it's the game of my dreams. Not only does it play really well and is a lot of fun, but visually it just really pushes my buttons. I've always thought "woooah!" when I saw cool dogfights and battleships and stuff on TV, so I'm just in heaven when I'm playing this game with the fantastic graphics and sound. Almost every moment is like it's right out of a classic war movie. Just earlier today I was screaming towards another fighter plane and his wingman, head to head, guns blazing, then just before we smashed in to each other, we both pulled up and banked left. If one of us went the other way we would both have collided, but we went opposite ways so he skimmed past my wings and I flew in to his smoke. It was just so cinematic and fantastic, and the game is constantly providing moments like this.
Is there ANYTHING bad about it?
So now that I've praised it like crazy, there are some imperfections, although most of them are quite minor. I would quite like there to be some "mouse smoothing" added in a patch at some point. It doesn't matter when you are flying a plane or using the map, but when you are shooting at ships miles away, using the full zoom on the binoculars/periscope, I sometimes think the mouse control could be a bit smoother. Also, the graphics are incredible considering the scale of the game, but there is room for improvement in a few bits. The smoke effects are a little bit 2007, and games like World in Conflict have spoiled me with smoke effects. Also when you land a torpedo on a ship, it's satisfying and you get a big, firey, mushroom cloud explosion, but the ship isn't lifted out of the water like it does in say Silent Hunter 4. But really, this game has FAR more stuff going on than both of those games, so having one or two areas with room for improvement is no big crime, but consider these things for my wish list anyway. Also, the campaigns start quite basic to teach you the game, and by the time you start getting to the really good stuff, like controlling multiple air craft carriers, battleships, dozens of ships etc, then there are only several missions left like that. They are extremely satisfying though. So I then went on to Skirmish mode which is where I get most fun from these kinds of games usually, and I loaded up one of the biggest maps and used the "Island Capture" game mode which is basically the "all out" game mode. It was really good and I had lots of units in the battle, but there were no submarines which I really missed. I'm not sure if this was just the map I was on, or the fact that I'm still a newbie and I missed them somehow. There were still all the planes, ships and island bases though, but... gimme subs! I need to check this because it's quite important. Without them in that mode, you can only play them online, and in the specific submarine missions, so I'm hoping they will show up.
There are two decent sized campaigns, and there are different game modes for the skirmishes, so you can have a duel, plane vs plane, battleship vs battleship, etc, or you can do an escort mission or whatever, and they are all a lot of fun. I think this alone will keep most gamers satisfied. Personally though, I think the future of this game should, and probably will, be in the "Island Capture" mode which is the all out mode. You get a big map full of islands and you alone have to send out landing craft to capture them and then an entire naval and air force to protect yourself while doing this. It's this mode which I think is the pinnacle of this game, and I think because the scope of it is just so epic, it is currently only JUST managing to really nail it. It does it "quite well" but I think in the future people will quickly take this for granted and the focus will be on making this mode bigger and more epic. At the moment it reminds me a bit of "Company of Heroes" in that it's all pretty intense, rushing for capture points and brutal battles happening all of sudden here and there. It goes on for an intense 30 minutes or so and then it's over. So it's great, REALLY great... but I just would really like there to be a bit 'more'. If you know old C&C games for example, the game came with a dozen or more maps to play in multiplayer and skirmishes, and they were ok, but it was only when the gigantic player made maps started arriving that I really got excited about it all. I feel similar about that to this game.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that they originally built this game as some kind of loose, free, general, 'war game' with some RTS elements and control over the units. They have all the cool submarine missions, and battleship missions and stuff, and in the process they just kind of stumbled across the idea of putting everything all together in one uber game mode. It is this game mode which I really think is the future of war gaming. It's got all the strategy and tactics of an RTS but you have complete, intimate control over all the units, and it's a LOT of fun to play. This is basically going to make all other RTS games obsolete as far as I'm concerned. It has the potential to do everything the other games do, but with far more. Why would I ever want to play another Command & Conquer game again, when I can play this game and actually FLY the planes myself, and jump in to the ships and shoot exactly what I want to shoot. To really be the massively popular "Grand Theft Auto" of war games though, I think this game mode will need some polish, either with patches or perhaps with an expansion pack. When that arrives... there will be some happy gamers out there.
In the mean time though, it is still very easy to recommend this game! It may still have some room for improvement in a few spots, but that doesn't stop it from being an incredible game. There are two campaigns, countless skirmish type missions and online play. Most people will get entertainment galore from it, thanks to the dogfighting, carpet bombing, dive bombing, submarine and torpedo boat sneakyness, the immense destructive power of the bigger ships, and all of the strategic and tactical elements of building and deploying wide selections of units anywhere, all under your control. There is just so much and it's all good quality and beautifully presented. If you also happen to be the kind of person who appreciates the 'spectacle of war', you will adore this game.
Kids in the 60's had plastic tanks and army figures to play with. In 2009, we have Battlestations: Pacific... Kids and grown ups alike should be very grateful for being so spoiled. Whether you want a sandbox war of your own, or a bunch of hand crafted missions, this game has it all.
Score?
I have a personal little policy that nothing is 100% perfect, so nothing deserves 10/10. There is always at least some little thing that you could improve. So that leaves me with 9/10 as the maximum possible score. I think it loses some points for it's rough edges, but it absolutely deserves bonus points for achieving so much in one game, and for managing to put it all together in such a good looking, solid and stable package.
Ideally I would like to give it 8.8 out of 10. For the purposes of Eurogamer's rigid 10 point system though, I'll round it down to an 8 because 9 might seem a bit over enthusiastic.
