Battlestations: Midway Review

Review by IanBear

To the Battleship!

Battlestations Midway is a realistic game, set in WW2, during the lead-up to the Battle of Midway in 1943. You start out in December 1941, at Pearl Harbour, as a rookie officer, and as you progress through the missions, you steadily get promoted until you find yourself at the helm of huge battleships and aircraft carriers, in charge of the strategy of fleets of planes and warships, which must be an enticing prospect for any armchair general. It's a shame the plot is fairly preposterous, especially considering the brevity of the single player campaign, but at least the missions themselves are fairly accurate and those FMV sequences can always be skipped, anyway.

Sights and Sounds of war

Graphically, whilst the maps are huge, and the scale of battles impressive, the game is not graphically very impressive, especially in SD resolutions. It is not hard to see that the game originally began life on the original Xbox, as the pacific islands lack detail, and textures can occasionally seem muddy or low resolution. Underwater, the draw distance isn’t up to much either, which is a shame really. However, the planes look nice, and so do most of the smaller boats. The wave effects are also pretty decent, although it is a shame that the sea never gets really choppy, nor are there any weather effects as such. The sound effects, however, are decent, with good bass on explosions, and everything seems authentic, and with the sheer amount of units on the battlefield, if you have a 5.1 system, this is a game where you will really appreciate it, with guns of all types going off from all angles.

War Games

The Single player is a lot of fun, but it's almost like a tutorial. In fact, the tutorial missions are so numerous and detailed that they take about as long to complete as the single player. The single player is far too short, whilst the later missions are huge in scope and take nearly an hour to complete, the early missions can be done in minutes. This is really disappointing, despite the fact that the game is orientated towards the multiplayer suite. There are also some challenges to complete, most of which are pretty tough, and get you some achievement points, but there are only ten in the boxed product (one more with the DLC), and most of the time spent will be restarting them due to the difficulty level of them. Thankfully, the single player missions are a lot of fun, and although you'll feel cheated that to do everything that the single player offers takes less than ten hours, you won't regret playing through it all. They also prepare you for the excellent multiplayer mode.

World War

Multiplayer is fantastic, although occasionally it can be a little hit-or-miss. This is due to lag, which whilst normally non-existent in 2-6 player games, ranges from virtually none to crippling in 7-8 player games and can ruin the experience. Thankfully, if you play with a smaller number of people, you merely get assigned more units, so you never lose the scale of the game. Instead of maps, you play scenarios, which is a good idea, as you still have objectives, and the basis of the game is good co-operative play, working with your team-mates to destroy the other human team. Battles are often lengthy, and the fact that most missions include land bases, carriers, battleships, and submarines means the variety of the gameplay and the strategic decisions you make are crucial to the outcome of the game. If you get good, talkative team-mates, the game really shines, and I relished the chance to become an admiral and take out the opposition with different strategies, and tactics, as you choose which types of unit you want before the scenario begins. There are problems, however. Hosts can quit at any point they like, which just ends the game. On numerous occasions, even in player matches, the host quits if they are about to lose, which is incredibly annoying, especially as one battle I fought was over two hours in length. However, generally, the multiplayer is superb.

Network War

If you have 400MP points to spare, a content pack is now available, which gives you 5 new units, a new single player challenge, and a new multiplayer challenge. The single player challenge is lengthy, but woefully easy in comparison to the other missions available, but it helps you get used to the new American units, namely the Iowa battleship, which is fearsomely powerful, and the P-38 Lightning fighter, which is a welcome addition as it is powerful, accurate and fast, much better for taking out enemy zero fighters than the standard Corsairs in the boxed product. The Japanese get a new battleship as well, and a new plane, but best, a mini-sub, which is near impossible to find and destroy, and adds a whole new type of gameplay, which is excellent. To be honest, the price seems a little steep at 400 points, but then again, most stuff on the MP is over-priced in our opinion, so it is about par for the course, and certainly not the same kind of rip-off that was horse armour or the new guitar hero songs.

Conclusion

Battlestations is only really worth it if you have Xbox Live Gold, as otherwise it is not worth your cash, but when you take it online it really is a fantastic game. It would have got more than 4-stars if it were not for the occasional multiplayer frustration and the short single player, as the gameplay is excellent.