Battlestations: Midway Impressions/War Room

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:26 pm

Downloaded the online demo this morning, and holy cow, what a game! This was not even on my radar screen, but I'm thankful for the demo, because I'm buying that sucker.

It took me about 10 minutes to wrap my head around the controls and the idea of it, and then my team proceeded to take out the Japanese airfield, essentially winning the battle. Each of the two missions we played took around 30-45 minutes to play, and that's without much knowledge of the gameplay. Add in defense knowledge, and I can see some epic battles on Live.

I know this hasn't gotten alot of pop in here, but trust me...this game is an owner, if you like battle games. There's some RTS to it, but not nearly as much as I had originally thought. Once you command some planes into the air, just press left or right on the dpad, and your in a plane, doing battle in the skies, or divebombing a shipyard, or torpedoeing a battleship.

Heck, the battleships are alot of fun as well. The artillery has some serious weight to it,and you can feel the impact as the guns go off.

For the sneaky, there are subs that can dive down, get up near a battleship or carrier, come near the surface, and take down those behemoths with a well placed, silent but deadly torpedo.

I'm stoked. This is one terrific demo. We need to get some DSP battles up and running with this one...

Zlax45 · Post by **Zlax45** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:30 pm

tealboy03 wrote:Downloaded the online demo this morning, and holy cow, what a game! This was not even on my radar screen, but I'm thankful for the demo, because I'm buying that sucker.

It took me about 10 minutes to wrap my head around the controls and the idea of it, and then my team proceeded to take out the Japanese airfield, essentially winning the battle. Each of the two missions we played took around 30-45 minutes to play, and that's without much knowledge of the gameplay. Add in defense knowledge, and I can see some epic battles on Live.

I know this hasn't gotten alot of pop in here, but trust me...this game is an owner, if you like battle games. There's some RTS to it, but not nearly as much as I had originally thought. Once you command some planes into the air, just press left or right on the dpad, and your in a plane, doing battle in the skies, or divebombing a shipyard, or torpedoeing a battleship.

Heck, the battleships are alot of fun as well. The artillery has some serious weight to it,and you can feel the impact as the guns go off.

For the sneaky, there are subs that can dive down, get up near a battleship or carrier, come near the surface, and take down those behemoths with a well placed, silent but deadly torpedo.

I'm stoked. This is one terrific demo. We need to get some DSP battles up and running with this one...

I dled this today and it is just not for me. I cant figure out what to do and really is too complicated for me.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:32 pm

I watched a few videos of this the other day and it peaked my interest. Nice to know its a solid game. I'll download it later on but I won't be able to play it until this weekend...I have a baseball coaches clinic to attend in NJ starting tomorrow.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:41 pm

I saw a brief preview for this a couple weeks ago and thought it looked interesting. I'm glad they put a demo out for it so I can see if I get overwhelmed or if it is a nice change of pace from my usual games.

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:42 pm

I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but I think the time commitment involved is going to scare me away. Otherwise, yeah, I'm interested in this as well.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:43 pm

Zlax45 wrote:
tealboy03 wrote:Downloaded the online demo this morning, and holy cow, what a game! This was not even on my radar screen, but I'm thankful for the demo, because I'm buying that sucker.

It took me about 10 minutes to wrap my head around the controls and the idea of it, and then my team proceeded to take out the Japanese airfield, essentially winning the battle. Each of the two missions we played took around 30-45 minutes to play, and that's without much knowledge of the gameplay. Add in defense knowledge, and I can see some epic battles on Live.

I know this hasn't gotten alot of pop in here, but trust me...this game is an owner, if you like battle games. There's some RTS to it, but not nearly as much as I had originally thought. Once you command some planes into the air, just press left or right on the dpad, and your in a plane, doing battle in the skies, or divebombing a shipyard, or torpedoeing a battleship.

Heck, the battleships are alot of fun as well. The artillery has some serious weight to it,and you can feel the impact as the guns go off.

For the sneaky, there are subs that can dive down, get up near a battleship or carrier, come near the surface, and take down those behemoths with a well placed, silent but deadly torpedo.

I'm stoked. This is one terrific demo. We need to get some DSP battles up and running with this one...
I dled this today and it is just not for me. I cant figure out what to do and really is too complicated for me.

I'm not good at all at full blown RTS games(which this is most decidedly not), and admittedly, this one took a bit to understand, but when I did, it was a completely different ballgame. Not to say that it's for everyone, but it's much more accessible than I had originally feared. If you'll give it some time, figure it out, I think you'll have fun with it.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:47 pm

webdanzer wrote:I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but I think the time commitment involved is going to scare me away. Otherwise, yeah, I'm interested in this as well.

It's really not that complicated. The worst thing is jumping into an online game with no idea of what to do. The full game won't be that way, and like I said, it didn't take long at all to figure out enough to have an absolute blast with it. My team won one skirmish, lost the second, and I had a ball both times. We chattered constantly, telling each other where we were, where the enemy was, who was going on a bombing run, etc. It really feels epic. I don't think there's that much of a time commitment involved...

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:49 pm

Diablo25 wrote:I watched a few videos of this the other day and it peaked my interest. Nice to know its a solid game. I'll download it later on but I won't be able to play it until this weekend...I have a baseball coaches clinic to attend in NJ starting tomorrow.

Honestly, you're the first person I thought of while I was playing it. "Diablo will love this!" kept reverberating in my mind...

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:51 pm

tealboy03 wrote:
webdanzer wrote:I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but I think the time commitment involved is going to scare me away. Otherwise, yeah, I'm interested in this as well.
It's really not that complicated. The worst thing is jumping into an online game with no idea of what to do. The full game won't be that way, and like I said, it didn't take long at all to figure out enough to have an absolute blast with it. My team won one skirmish, lost the second, and I had a ball both times. We chattered constantly, telling each other where we were, where the enemy was, who was going on a bombing run, etc. It really feels epic. I don't think there's that much of a time commitment involved...

I'm not really concerned about how complex it is to learn, but about the actual time the game takes to play:

tealboy03 wrote: Each of the two missions we played took around 30-45 minutes to play, and that's without much knowledge of the gameplay. Add in defense knowledge, and I can see some epic battles on Live.

I'm one of those guys that at any given moment, may need to bail on an online game because of kid or other issues. I don't think my team would suddenly like having a battleship squadron set adrift or something!

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:54 pm

webdanzer wrote: I'm not really concerned about how complex it is to learn, but about the actual time the game takes to play:

tealboy03 wrote: Each of the two missions we played took around 30-45 minutes to play, and that's without much knowledge of the gameplay. Add in defense knowledge, and I can see some epic battles on Live.
I'm one of those guys that at any given moment, may need to bail on an online game because of kid or other issues. I don't think my team would suddenly like having a battleship squadron set adrift or something!

Here's the cool thing: put the controller down, go take care of your stuff, and let the computer do it for you. You can take control of a sub, dive down to a safe depth, and not worry about it...

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:57 pm

So is it a RTS/Battlefield hybrid or something? The war in the Pacific setting looks great but i really don't get how this game plays. Is it an exclusively online game like the Battlefield series or will it have a full fledged single player campaign?

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:57 pm

The computer can take control of your units? That's pretty cool.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:41 pm

LAking wrote:So is it a RTS/Battlefield hybrid or something? The war in the Pacific setting looks great but i really don't get how this game plays. Is it an exclusively online game like the Battlefield series or will it have a full fledged single player campaign?

Full single player campaign included. And yeah, the RTS/Battlefield hybrid is a pretty good description...

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:44 pm

webdanzer wrote:The computer can take control of your units? That's pretty cool.

So far as I have seen. The wingman AI is pretty darn good, too. I mean, say on the carrier, you command 3 squadrons of planes, send them either off to attack or hang around and defend the carrier. You don't have to micromanage the planes-they'll defend to the last man. Or you can command a battleship to cover your flanks.

As far as 'I'll just let the computer do it all', no, it doesn't work that way, from what I've seen...

Sully · Post by **Sully** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:19 pm

The IGN Hands-On said the tutorial takes about 90 minutes to complete.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:47 pm

Sully wrote:The IGN Hands-On said the tutorial takes about 90 minutes to complete.

That makes sense...this is one of those 'easy to get into, hard to master' deals, I think...

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:17 pm

Consider my interest piqued as well. I'll download the demo tonight and check it out over the weekend.

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 4:21 pm

Played the demo last night after GOW and i wasn't too impressed, although i'm willing to give it another go. I want to try a single player mission to learn how to better manage my squad. There was absolutely no communication between teammates. Perhaps it would be better as a DSP poker night game where we can actually go into each battle with a strategy.

For some reason the default controls had the yaw (i'm using the correct terminology, right?) backwards on the planes. Pushing down on the stick pointed the plane's nose down opposed to up. I could never quite get used to that.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:07 pm

Just preordered it. I downloaded a walkthrough video that made so many other things clear. This game is going to be something. I hope some more DSPers join the fray...

nyisles16 · Post by **nyisles16** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:15 pm

yup- definately getting this one...

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:06 am

tealboy03 wrote:Just preordered it. I downloaded a walkthrough video that made so many other things clear. This game is going to be something. I hope some more DSPers join the fray...

Where's the video. IGN?

I like the concept but the demo is tough to get into because of the controls.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:23 am

JRod wrote:
tealboy03 wrote:Just preordered it. I downloaded a walkthrough video that made so many other things clear. This game is going to be something. I hope some more DSPers join the fray...
Where's the video. IGN?

I like the concept but the demo is tough to get into because of the controls.

I think it was IGN, if not, TeamXbox may have it...

slyguy · Post by **slyguy** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:40 pm

Yeah i loved the demo, play it online (the only thing you can do)I had a lot of fun with it. Between this and crackdown i cant wait

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:23 pm

Review up:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/757/757297p1.html

Boltman · Post by **Boltman** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:54 pm

nyisles16 wrote:yup- definately getting this one...

Count me in as well, I love the way this game is looking.

Video review up as well, the video review is much more telling, give it a watch.

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/824/ ... ids_1.html

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Battlestations: Midway Impressions/War Room

Battlestations: Midway Impressions/War Room

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Re: Battlestations: Midway...oh yeah, baby...