War on the Sea coming soon! (from Killerfish Games)

[trek]

Rayfer, Glad to help. If you feel like it post your impressions after you delve into the Battle Editor. I'm curious to see if you discover anything about using it I haven't as of yet. The more people we can get here to try it the more we can provide tips to help each other progress in gaining knowledge to use it to it's fullest potential.

[W8taminute]

Here's my assessment of the game so far. 

I've played with it for 12 hours now. 
The only mode I've been playing is the US Campaign.  I've played a couple of tutorials just to better understand what I'm doing in the campaign.

My short review is - This is a fun game!!

If you are the type who insists on absolute historical accuracy when it comes to units, unit behavior during battle, or anything else which requires strict dogmatic adherence to reality as it was in 1942 then War On The Sea is not the game for you.  Save your money for something else.

If, on the other hand, you are a historical gamer who loves to have fun (strong emphasis on having fun) playing games set in a time period of his interest please give this game a try.  The simple description of this game is a cross between Battle Stations Pacific and Koei's Pacific Theater of Operations 2.  The bottom line is that recipe makes for an enjoyable campaign experience. 

Aircraft and ships cannot be piloted via first person perspective but you can manually control individual units from a high level viewpoint.  What I mean is say for example you have a wing of 4 torpedo bombers.  You can issue a general order to the entire wing to attack a ship or you can issue individual orders to each aircraft in that wing.

Likewise for ships you can actually issue individual orders for each of the main guns, or the secondary guns, or the torpedoes, or the depth charges, or a combination of all of the aforementioned.  If that seems like too much micromanagement you can simply issue general orders to a ship or group of ships.

Man this game is fun just get it.

The strategic layer consists of capturing bases and building up airfields and ports.  Not terribly deep but appropriate for what this game is trying to convey. 

[hellfish6]

I'm more concerned about the micromanagement (ordering individual planes to target other planes, having to control a ship to make sure it avoids torpedoes, etc.) than absolute historical accuracy. If/when that gets cleaned up, then I'm all in until TFA comes out.

[Toonces]

My brief experience mirrors trek's.

I had read this in a review, and found it to be true.  The first time in a night engagement when, looking through binoculars, I saw a Japanese broadside light up on the horizon and then coming crashing down was absolutely worth the price of admission.  I've rarely felt something so visceral, and after reading so much about WW2 naval battles, to get some sense of what it actually looked like - like a History Channel documentary without all the crappy dialogue - was worth the money right there.

I think the key, like Cold Waters, is to not get too caught up in the "accuracy" but remember that at its heart this is a game, with all that implies.  If you can keep that perspective, there is a lot to love here I think.  And, Killerfish has a pretty solid after release support record.

Overall, I think this is a worthy buy. 

[Dammit Carl!]

The first time in a night engagement when, looking through binoculars, I saw a Japanese broadside light up on the horizon and then coming crashing down was absolutely worth the price of admission.  I've rarely felt something so visceral, and after reading so much about WW2 naval battles, to get some sense of what it actually looked like - like a History Channel documentary without all the crappy dialogue - was worth the money right there.

Now this is the stuff I love to hear!  Thanks!

[JasonPratt]

Time for Part 2 of Wolfpack's Japanese campaign!

[rocketman]

The TortugaPower campaign series from the US side is a good watch as well  O0

[Zulu1966]

Here's my assessment of the game so far. 

I've played with it for 12 hours now. 
The only mode I've been playing is the US Campaign.  I've played a couple of tutorials just to better understand what I'm doing in the campaign.

My short review is - This is a fun game!!

If you are the type who insists on absolute historical accuracy when it comes to units, unit behavior during battle, or anything else which requires strict dogmatic adherence to reality as it was in 1942 then War On The Sea is not the game for you.  Save your money for something else.

If, on the other hand, you are a historical gamer who loves to have fun (strong emphasis on having fun) playing games set in a time period of his interest please give this game a try.  The simple description of this game is a cross between Battle Stations Pacific and Koei's Pacific Theater of Operations 2.  The bottom line is that recipe makes for an enjoyable campaign experience. 

Aircraft and ships cannot be piloted via first person perspective but you can manually control individual units from a high level viewpoint.  What I mean is say for example you have a wing of 4 torpedo bombers.  You can issue a general order to the entire wing to attack a ship or you can issue individual orders to each aircraft in that wing.

Likewise for ships you can actually issue individual orders for each of the main guns, or the secondary guns, or the torpedoes, or the depth charges, or a combination of all of the aforementioned.  If that seems like too much micromanagement you can simply issue general orders to a ship or group of ships.

Man this game is fun just get it.

The strategic layer consists of capturing bases and building up airfields and ports.  Not terribly deep but appropriate for what this game is trying to convey.

Oh man - going to have to buy this now. Successfully resisted up till now :)

[JasonPratt]

Wolfpack's third episode on the Japanese campaign... that was faster!

He has said that currently the subs break the game from being too overpowered, but of course you can just refuse to play many subs on your own side, so... 

[Sir Slash]

I watched that last night. The subs are very powerful against the AI which doesn't seem to look for them until the torps start hitting. And one sub was able to chase-down an American Cruiser Task Force and catch it after successfully attacking it once, when did THAT ever happen? I mean in a single day/night time period. On the other hand, the surface combat looked delicious. And reasonably authentic I thought.

[W8taminute]

Hi all.  Quick update for you.

I've logged in about 26 hours of gameplay since getting the game.  I've played the campaign game exclusively. 

My short answer is: This game is fun but you only earn chump change from your weekly income whilst the ai can spam everything at you ad infinitum.  Campaign is broken and I'll shelve the game for now.  Too bad.  It's fun but resource income is way too low to keep up with the ai. 

[Sir Slash]

"LUCY! You got some 'splaining to do".  :timeout:

[Toonces]

Yeah, I'm refunding it.  This game might be a good "game" but it's not scratching my itch at all.  Really too bad.

[Toonces]

Doh!

I'm outside the 14 day window!  Doooohhhh!

Well, I requested a refund anyway.  Let's see what happens.  This would be only the second time in probably 300 games that I've requested a refund.

[Rayfer]

Hi all.  Quick update for you.

I've logged in about 26 hours of gameplay since getting the game.  I've played the campaign game exclusively. 

My short answer is: This game is fun but you only earn chump change from your weekly income whilst the ai can spam everything at you ad infinitum.  Campaign is broken and I'll shelve the game for now.  Too bad.  It's fun but resource income is way too low to keep up with the ai.

I'm having a blast with the Custom Battles, so much so I haven't even looked at the Campaigns yet.  In CB's you can pretty much set up any engagement you want.  I just wish they would address the way you select ships and planes in setting up a battle, it assumes you know a ships type, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, etc. by a ships historic name. I haven't played in a couple of weeks so maybe it has been fixed?