There was a moment about forty minutes into the tutorial of war strategy game Battlestations: Midway — about forty minutes into the tutorial — when it was teaching me how to launch planes from an aircraft carrier, and asked me to select squadron 3. The thing I had to select for Squadron 3, it turned out, was about the only option on screen which did not have the number 3 next to it. I burst out laughing. It didn’t take much to set me off, amidst the endless dry explanations of points of procedure. Another hour of endurance or so later, I got the Achievement for completing the tutorial and it may rival the one for completing the Kid levels in Super Meat Boy as my hardest won.
Battlestations: Midway is a World War II game which wants to provide both a top-down and bottom-up version of taking part in the war, letting you take control of individual units in the fight but also shuffle them around a map. It was not a new concept to games; indeed it’s a bit like the old vision of Player Manager, except instead of Bryan Robson’s suit jacket and football shorts combo, you’re wearing an Admiral’s stripes, flying goggles, and whatever people put on in a submarine.
With that level of possibility, the extended tutorial is mostly a necessary evil. And once it’s done, and the game’s thoughtful difficulty curve slides in, it turns out not to be the hard work it looked like it was going to be. Part of this is that the Xbox 360 controller offers an array of buttons, triggers and sticks wide enough to tackle some pretty complex concepts. Even as someone who has proved basically allergic to flight sims earlier in Super Chart Island, flying planes in Battlestations: Midway is much more accessible while still providing a challenge when it comes to, say, dropping bombs on the enemy’s ships and not your own. And if it gets too challenging, the option to switch back to a strategic view and let the AI take over the plane is right there.
Ships offer their own different experience as well, not just in moving bulky great things around tight spaces but in prioritising repairs to recover movement, weaponry, or just a lower chance of sinking. And submarines are a fascinating world of their own, with a risk-reward to sinking dangerously low below the water to stay out of the range of detection. There is a comprehensive sheet on which units have the firepower to make a dent in which other ones which is like Pokémon types but a lot samier and more complicated, but the game builds up gradually enough to stave off too much consulting while playing.
What it does with all this impressively detailed warfare is where the catch comes in. Its setting is the Pacific in World War II and it offers a bunch of set scenarios where you play as the US or Japan and seek to accomplish particular objectives, which do not display much interest in any narrative around the fighting. The main event, though, is a story campaign mode in which you take on the role of a couple of young American brothers in the navy and air force, who are setting out to once again “take revenge for Pearl Harbor!”. The cutscenes in this mode encompass all of the casual racism of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun with none of the production values. This doesn’t even feel like something that was a goal in making the game, but just came along with the territory, which is almost worse. It turns out that other things can easily come along with a deep interest in the technical particulars of war.
Top of the charts for week ending 10 February 2007:
