Battlestations: Midway

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on June 07, 2005

Final Glimpse: Take control of the sleeping giant.

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Unlike the recent wave of World War II games where you ran around with a gun and occasionally hopped into a vehicle, in Battlestations: Midway you will do nothing but fight in vehicles Ц and boy, what vehicles they will be.

Taking place in the six month period between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway, you will take control of the US Pacific Fleet to engage the Japanese Imperial Navy in a cinematic style worthy of a Hollywood WWII epic. And we're not talking one or two ships here; Hungarian developer Mithis Games will give you full control over historically accurate aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines and a whole whack of aircraft including fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers and heavy bombers.

Combining real-time strategy with third-person action, you will start each of the dozen or so missions (which are based on real historical battles like Operation Bluebird and the Battle of the Coral Sea) by issuing orders to your ships and planes via an overhead nautical map. You can send out patrols, position escorts, issue attack orders on specific targets (either on land or sea) and launch aircraft. Once your strategy is laid out, you can take control of any vehicle and switch on the fly; so for example, you could hop into a fighter to take out an enemy air patrol, switch to a submarine to sink a destroyer pestering your carrier, and then control a battleship to pound an enemy cruiser. If you don't like your deployments and need to pull in reinforcements, you will also be able to go back into your overhead map and issue new orders at any time.

Since the emphasis is on action, you will spend most of your time fighting rather than giving commands. You will maneuver each ship and plane with the left stick while the right stick is used for a free look to give you a better view of the area of operations, which will be huge. Each map will be a mind-boggling 50x50 miles square Ц and what makes it even more amazing is the incredible highly detailed graphics of each individual vehicle. From the rivets on the planes to the faces of sailors running around on ship decks, the graphical beauty Ц especially on such a massive scale Ц is something to behold. Flames and smoke will billow from crippled ships, big splashes will spray up from underwater explosions, and ships will leave big wakes in the water. Oh, yes, folks, this is one pretty game.

Even though the game will be more action than RTS, Mithis didn't want to create a mindless arcade shooter and so added some realistic simulation elements into the gameplay. For example, the huge gun turrets on ships will rotate in real time and can overheat if you use them too much. Ships will list to one side if they suffer enough damage, a good thing to keep in mind when you want to disable flight operations from enemy aircraft carriers. Each ship has different compartments, so by aiming at the rear you might be able to take out the engines and leave a ship dead in the water. Of course, too much realistic simulation can be overwhelming and distract from the action, so you will have unlimited ammo Ц but again, be aware that your guns can overheat.

From the relatively speedy destroyers to the lumbering but heavily armored battleships, you will not only have to worry about enemy ships, but submarines and dive-bombers as well. You can take control of anti-aircraft guns, but probably the most effective way of taking out those annoying aircraft is to go mano a mano in a nimble fighter of your own. You will need to be careful, though, because the sky will be filled with AA flak in addition to determined enemy fighters eager to send you to a watery grave. If you have the nerve, you can hop into a painfully slow torpedo bomber (where apparently, pilot return rates of only 15% were considered УgoodФ) to take out a ship, or brave sprays of AA fire in a dive-bomber. To keep things manageable, you will only be able to launch about a dozen aircraft at a time, but these can be replenished as they are shot down.

Once you complete the single player campaign by winning the pivotal Battle of Midway, you will unlock the Japanese missions, which will let you take on the Pacific Fleet from the other side. As you progress through the game, you will also be able to unlock about a dozen aircraft, ship and submarine challenges that won't affect the story, but should add a nice variety to the gameplay.

The big news will be multiplayer, but unfortunately, nothing much has been said about it. However, all indications are it will be huge and ambitious. Supporting up to 16 players on Xbox Live, we can easily imagine two teams duking it out in the Pacific, with some players specializing in ship warfare while others battle in the skies. Nice!