GamersInfo.net

In 1942, the United States and Japan fought the Battle of Midway. Japan's Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto came up with a clever plan to defeat U.S. naval power. However, Japan's cryptography (naval code D) was cracked by the United States, and therefore, U.S. Adm. Chester Nimitz knew where the Japanese Navy would be and when. After four days of fighting, the United States — at the loss of one carrier and one destroyer of its own — had sunk four enemy carriers and one cruiser, plus myriad other ships as well as destroying a good part of the Japanese naval air power in terms of both planes and pilots.

Battlestations 1942 doesn't recreate that battle, per se, but the game gives a chance for the player to take control of a small group of ships on either side and take the battle to the enemy.

There are three modes of battle in the game: Sink the Battleship, Seek and Destroy, and Escort Mission. Each of these missions can be played from either side (Japan or the United States), though that only changes the faces of the people on your ship and some of the dialogue. The first two modes are identical from both sides, while no matter which side you pick, you are the one doing the escorting in "Escort Mission."

I thought it would've been neat to be able to be the attacker in that mission.

Each mission starts with a quick dialogue setting up the scenario. For instance, in Sink the Battleship, it is reported that the enemy's admiral (either Nimitz or Yamamoto) is on the enemy's battleship. The American dialogue is fairly generic; the Japanese is, too, though they do talk about the emperor a lot. In Sink the Battleship and Seek and Destroy modes, it'll give you a quick glimpse of where the enemy is at the beginning. You'll have to keep in mind the restrictions that the islands give on movement, too.

Finally, you pick the difficulty — easy, medium or hard.

There are basically two modes of play. When you first start, you can select any of your ships. You have 100 action points to use. Moving any single ship takes away from that pool of action points — the bigger ships, such as destroyers and battleships, move less for the action points spent.

Each ship also has special things it can do. The scout can spend 10 action points to use a telescope for a wider range of vision to look for enemies. The minelayer can lay mines and will automatically detect minefields. Submarines can submerge for a couple of turns before taking damage if they don't surface. The destroyer can spend 10 action points to double its combat time for the turn, and the battleship can spend 60 action points to summon an air raid on certain areas.

From there, it's a question of moving your ships to find the enemy. At some point, you will encounter the enemy, and it's time for battle. Attacking an enemy ship takes no action points.

Most ships have multiple ways of attacking. For destroyers and battleships, they have both front and rear gun turrets. This will influence the direction that the crosshairs move (more on that in a minute), and since the enemy may eliminate one, you may be restricted in usage. Submarines also get torpedoes and a deck gun they can use if on the surface.

When combat starts, the player pushes the action button (pushing the dial on the side of the Blackberry, the standard "click" action), and the timer starts. From there, you select a weapon, and a crosshair will start moving one way over the ship (usually up and down the length of the ship, if I remember correctly). Once you pick where on the ship you want to hit, it'll start moving at a 90 degree angle from the previous direction. Once it's on the ship, click again, and a shell will launch out. You can shoot as many times as possible in the time given — usually around four shots if you're on the ball but still want to line up your shots on specific components (in my experience).

Why aim for specific components? Ships have multiple parts. For instance, if you've found that battleship and don't want it to blast your little ship, you can take out its gun turrets.

Torpedoes are similar, except you can't target components — instead, the crosshairs go up and down in front of the ship, and you have to make sure you aim below water.

After your ship has taken a pounding — assuming it survived — you also can spend some of your action points to repair it. That's not as well-documented as other parts, as I had to trial and error to figure it out. Basically, you click on the part, then hold down the "alt" key and scroll the wheel to pick how repaired you want the part, given your action points.

After your turn, the enemy gets a turn. If they attack you, there's nothing you can do but sit there and watch it. I wouldn't have minded if there was a "go fast" method of enemy turns, especially when they're just moving around — it's not like you can see them anyways if they're out of range.

It's a fairly straightforward game. I find the speed of the ships a bit frustrating — you have to decide who moves where when, so it's easy to leave a ship behind. It also can be hard at times to figure out how to get around some islands, but I got better at it as I got more familiar with the game.

For a quick, fun game that isn't overly concerned with historical accuracy, Battlestations 1942 is not bad at all. There's a bit of twitchiness needed for it, which might make some people less likely to want to play or make it harder to play in some circumstances, but all in all, it's a fairly fun game — especially for $6.99.