PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a recent release by Akella, a well-known Russian publisher and studio that has created and published more than 800 videogames in the last 15 years. Akella has not only developed naval games — including Age of Sail and Sea Dogs — but has localized numerous high-profile games into Russian, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia, Sacred and Painkiller. The company has even translated and presently manages the Russian gameservers for EverQuest II.

PT Boats is a blend of 3-D action with 2-D real-time strategy, simplified so that even a landlubber like me can enjoy it. You can pause the action to give orders, and you can speed up time so you don’t have to waste it all patrolling and just get right to the action. If you like the RTS mode, just give your ships orders and watch them fight out the battle on the high seas, but if you want to be in the thick of it, jump into a PT boat and go straight for the enemy’s throat. Sure, the commander of a dozen or so vessels would be sitting in the bridge of his flagship monitoring communications, but what fun is that? PT Boats lets you have fun zipping around in the fastest and most heavily armed (pound for pound anyway) boats in the fleet while you still get to tell the big ships what to do and where to do it. The interface allows you to switch back and forth between your fast-attack boat’s cockpit and gun positions as well as the overall map of the area where you command your fleet. Not only can you order a cruiser to pound the enemy ships with its 8-inch guns, you can use the attack as a diversion to race in and finish off enemy capital ships with your torpedoes while your minesweepers keep their subs away.

Each knight must have his rusty steed (Alpha version on left, DX10 release version on right)

Now before I keep gushing about this game, I have to admit I am not a fan of naval battles, so forgive me if I am not too pedantic about the historical details. I’m a grunt through and through, and I don’t even like being on boats all that much. The terrain — endless ocean — is plain and uninteresting, and I prefer the smell of gunpowder and sweat to salt spray and diesel fumes. Fortunately, I can stay dry playing PT Boats and still get to crack some pretty big ships with a couple of solid torpedo hits. As you can see from the comparisons of early screenshots with similar images from the release version in DX10, the realism of the details is spectacular (the Alpha screenshots are about 2 years old).

Sound and graphics are as solid as would be expected from any current-generation DX10 game, and 16-player multiplayer is available as well as co-op, although I didn’t try either myself. The water and mist effects are good, but within the first five minutes, I stopped noticing them, even the wake and chop. Physics models appear excellent, but not quite enough to make me seasick. The variety of vessels is sufficient — PT boats (12 models!) cruisers, transports, destroyers, minesweepers, tankers and submarines; more than three dozen ships altogether — without getting into the larger and more complicated ships like battleships and aircraft carriers. The campaign setting is limited to the areas around the North Sea, so if you’re looking to score against Japanese ships, you won’t find that here. On the other hand, one big gray ship looks quite like any other, particularly when it’s shooting at you! And that does leave some room for expansions and mods ...

Shooting gives satisfying bits of flame and smoke, or plumes of water when you miss (compare the Alpha screenshots on the left with the final version on the right to see just how much detail has been incorporated into the boats!)

It was a bit hard for me to learn all of the controls right away, but I’m used to games with guns and crosshairs, so you might get it a little faster. Actually, PT Boats does have plenty of guns and crosshairs once you start using them, and they’re very effective against low-flying aircraft and pursuing enemy ships (once you’ve run out of torpedoes of course). I don’t know how accurate this game is to World War II naval conflict, but to me, it’s a lot more fun than some of the big-name simulations that cater to a more technical seafaring crowd. In fact, PT Boats was so much fun I asked the developers for some inside information.

Here's the scoop
What? You want more secrets than all of these exclusive screenshots? OK, check out these interesting items hidden in PT Boats’s files, straight from the poop deck.

Flying saucers: Yes, two secret German aircraft that never made it to the battlefield in World War II are included in the game’s assets, the VRIL 7 and VRIL 9. I’d really like to fly one into the water and see how many times they skip.

Take us to your leader, so we can kill him!

Tanks, ahoy! Believe it or not, the tanks carried on this transport can fire their guns! Their 3-inch (76.2mm) guns may not seem like much on a naval scale, but the number of them and the likelihood that you’ll be facing them in your tin can — I mean, PT boat — make them a bit more interesting.

Now if only I had a bazooka...

Technical details: Sure enough, there are lots of different ships and boats available, and their weapons and capabilities look and feel real. It’s definitely not everything in every navy in World War II, but it certainly enough variety to provide different challenges for PT boats and convoys.

Some of the equipment detailed in the game

End game
What good are these goodies buried in the game’s assets? Well, I have it on good authority (*cough*from the developers*cough*) that Akella is going to release a mission editor for PT Boats very soon. Then you’ll be able to deploy a flotilla of tank-armed merchant ships with UFO air support and subs guarding the waters below. What could be cooler than that? Water skis?

Heading home after a hard day’s work

For more information, visit the game’s website at Battlefront.com or http://www.pt-boats.net/.