Battlestations: Midway Preview

Battlestations: Midway looks like it'll be perfect for WWII buffs

Somebody once wrote that 'War is Hell' (William Tecumseh Sherman, leader of the Union army in the American Civil War, apparently - ain't Google great?) and recently games have set out to show gamers exactly what he was talking about. Titles like Company of Heroes and the Call of Duty series deliver intense, all-action, uber-violent experiences that overwhelm your senses and leave you thinking 'bloody hell, I'm glad I never had to fight in WWII!' If Eidos' upcoming title Battlestations: Midway is anything to go by though, war isn't Hell, it's just really, really complicated.

This is one of those games that seems to have been in development forever, having first been showcased back in 2004 at the ill-fated EGN show. The title was then being developed by SCi (before SCi bought Eidos, then changed their corporate name to Eidos, just to confuse matters) and the company invited journalists to view the game aboard a luxury yacht moored on the river next to EGN (thereby cleverly avoiding the fees involved in renting a stand inside the show... maybe they were saving their pennies so that they could afford the purchase price for Eidos or something?) At the time, the game was slated for delivery on Xbox, PS2 and PC, and was called simply 'Midway'. It wasn't long before this title received a prefix, presumably to prevent confusion amongst slightly stupid gamers who might otherwise make the mistake of thinking they were buying not a WWII strategic combat game, but a big American corporation famed for their arcade machines.

Fast-forward to 2006, and SCi-now-Eidos organises yet another preview event for Battlestations: Midway, which is now scheduled for release on just the Xbox 360 and PC, the Xbox and PS2 versions apparently having been abandoned in the intervening time period. The setting for the new event was yet another boat, but something a little more ambitious than a luxury yacht this time: videogame pods had been installed inside one of the conference rooms aboard the ex-Royal Navy cruiser HMS Belfast, permanently moored on the Thames. With cries of 'yo ho ho' and 'shiver me timbers' thankfully totally absent from proceedings, a gaggle of videogame journos gathered aboard ship to get some hands-on time with the game, under the supervision and tutelage of key members of the development team, all of whom turned out to know far more about WWII warships than can possibly be healthy...

For those of you who didn't study American history, the battle of Midway is seen as one of the decisive engagements of WWII. It was where the US Pacific Fleet, under Admiral Nimitz, managed to surprise the Japanese forces near the island of Midway and sink their four aircraft carriers that had - six months previously - mounted the sneak attack on Pearl Harbour, destroying a load of American ships.

The point of the game, simply put, is to utilise the different units under your command to complete various offensive objectives...

In single-player mode, Battlestations: Midway follows the career of US Navy recruit Henry Walker as he moves through the various campaigns and engagements of the Pacific War. With each level, you find yourself in command of a variety of ships, planes and installations, starting with just a few, and then, as Henry gradually gets promoted, taking command of larger and larger forces. The point of the game, simply put, is to utilise the different units under your command to complete various offensive objectives, while at the same time maintaining certain defensive ones. So for instance: you might be tasked with destroying a couple of enemy air bases, followed by some fuel depots to complete the mission, but at the same time you have to ensure that your aircraft carrier isn't itself destroyed. Sounds fairly simple, right? Trust me: it's not.

No, because while Battlestations: Midway might appear at first look to be a straight-forward RTS title, it's actually quite a lot more than that. While you do issue orders to your various different units via a map, unlike other RTS games, it's not simply a case of then just sitting back and letting your forces get on with it. No; in this game, as well as playing at being Admiral, you also have to get your hands dirty in the trenches (this is a metaphor - they don't dig trenches in sea warfare) by jumping in and taking direct control of the various units, be they aircraft, ship or submarine, as they make contact with the enemy.

It's looking impressive, although you'll see a lot of menus too.

And this is where one of the potential problems with the game rears its head. The development team has done a sterling job recreating the wealth of WWII military hardware which the American and Japanese forces had at their disposal in 1942; you can control cruisers, destroyers, aircraft carriers, submarines, air bases, ship-building facilities, fighters, bombers, fighter-bombers, torpedo-bombers... you name it; if there was a chance you could have been standing on it, sailing on it, flying it or killed by it in the Pacific in 1942, then it's been recreated here. Well, aside from scurvy... I'm fairly sure I never spotted a menu screen dealing with shipboard diseases, but then I did only play the game for a day, so I wouldn't want to entirely rule it out.

All well and good though, right? Everyone likes realism, yes? The problem though, comes when you get down to trying to control all these different units at once. Just one of the ships, for instance, has you potentially dealing with helm and speed controls, artillery, flak guns, depth charges, torpedoes and damage control. Simply put: handling just one of these craft is almost a game in itself! Except of course you're not handling just one of these, you're controlling two or three, plus an aircraft carrier, plus a variety of aircraft, plus maybe a sub, possibly even an airbase or two... it's all VERY intimidating when you first pick up a pad, even if you've got a developer standing next to you to explain the various commands (and I'm fairly sure that they're not giving away a member of the development team with each final boxed copy of the game).