Battlestations: Midway between strategy and action. Does it hit the right balance? Full review inside.
In Battlestations you are a commander leading your men in battles that took place directly after Pearl Harbour. The idea is that you use a map screen to direct your various platoons to do the jobs that you see fit. You will be controlling fighter planes, dive bombers, submarine, aircraft carriers and a ton of other vehicles. At any time during the game, you can switch between commanding and actually flying, steering, shooting or bombing in one of your many vehicles. When I first purchased the game, I instantly put myself through the painful, yet very useful, tutorial. It brings you through every aspect of controlling and really does a great job of assisting you through the extremely complicated process of learning how to play this game.
The controls in the game I found to be very intuitive. Controlling all of your different units at once isn't too overwhelming and I find it very exciting trying to keep up with the constant chaos of the game. If you at anytime are sick of the constant strategy of the game, you can take control of one of your air or sea units with the press of a button. It's a good amount of control and you really feel as if you are getting things done.
Once I was finished, I jumped into single player with both feet and decided to really give it a go. First off, the cutscenes look absolutely amazing. I thought Call of Duty 3 had some of the best looking cutscenes ever until my eyes laid feast upon this beautiful work of art. Everything looks completely realistic and is really quite a pleasure to look at. Once I actually got into the game, it was spectacular. You start out nice and easy and slowly grow into more and more exciting battles. I'm almost done the campaign and I find it very exciting.
But all of this is nothing until you take in on Live. This is really where the game shines through. There are 9 available maps yet only 1 game mode. At first that sounded disappointing, but I compare the game mode to War in Call of Duty 3; there's no other reason to play anything else. You can play with up to 7 other people in an objective based game where you can choose between 4 different roles in both the Japanese and American side. It's great to be playing with a bunch of people while communicating. I've find the people that are playing online to be quite competent, which helps when you're in the middle of a huge war. It's very exciting.
The audio-visual presentation is quite impressive overall. As I mentioned, the cutscenes are some of the best of ever scene, though the game doesn't quite live up to that. There are many inconsistencies. The sky is amazing, yet the water is merely average. The planes and ships look great, but the land textures are sub-par up close. It's about 80% good and 20% disappointing.
In the audio front, it all sounds quite nice. The score is great and so are the sound effects. In the middle of a battle, it's good to hear some realistic explosions and some of your men yelling at you over the radio. In single player, the voice acting is also quite decent.
Although you may not be able to tell this from the tone of this review, I find this game to be one of the most exciting that is currently out on the Xbox 360. It has deep strategy, strong action and a lot of things accompanying it to make it a well rounded package. This is really a must have for all fans of Blazing Angels, Age of Empires or anything good. I really have to say this is an underrated must own.
Positives:
+ Great looking cutscenes and clouds
+ Good audio presentation
+ Extremely deep strategy
+ Exciting Battles
+ One of the best experiences on Live
Negatives:
- 6-7 hour single player campaign
- Steep learning curve
- Inconsistencies in graphical presentation