Repair your vessels
From the tactical menu you can click on any of your vehicles and jump immediately into their control rooms allowing you to man the controls and weapons. Switching between vehicles is crucial as it's often necessary to jump into a ship or a plane that is under attack from the enemy in an attempt to manoeuvre them out of a situation. Thankfully, the process is so smooth and swift that it’s effortless to switch between the likes of Destroyer ship or a Dauntless dive bomber; so seamless that it encourages you to experiment with the different vehicles.
Alongside the prolonged spells of battle you’ll also need to keep an eye out for damages to your sea dwelling craft and via the resource-allotment screen you can allocate crew members to areas of the ship to repair any damage that may have been caused - such as a fire breaking out onboard or damage to the ship’s engine system. The interface that you use for repairing damage indicates where the ship has suffered attack and it’s then simply a matter of allocating one of your 3 crews to patch up the problem. We discovered rather too quickly that it’s easy to get distracted and concentrate on the action rather than keeping an eye out for any ships that may be in trouble. We headed across the Japanese controlled Java Sea only to come face to face with three enemy Destroyers and a battleship that battered two of our ships to the point where they were leaking water. Unfortunately, we were more concerned with planning tactics on the map and ended up in Davy Jones’s locker, but if we’d have paid more attention we would have noticed the warning signs that flash up when a ship is in trouble. The interface for repairing damage is simple, yet effective and adds to the tension of the nail biting battles.
Click for larger imageInitially we did struggle to control the aircraft due to the sensitive controls; if you press down too hard on your analog stick you'll find yourself hurtling towards the sea and need to pull up extremely quickly to ensure you don't make a premature landing. Anyone who’s familiar with flying games such as Blazing Angels, where you need to use both analog sticks to move around, will soon be dive bombing effortlessly and maybe even showing off their loop the loop skills.
Controls obviously differ between land and sea vehicles and the crosshair varies on each unit. Targeting an enemy with a plane is far more difficult than with a sea based vehicle due to the swift movements of other aircraft, but like any game, once you get the hang of it (it took us about 30 minutes) the results are rewarding as you move in formation with other friendly planes and send a barrage of bullets at oncoming enemies and swoop low to drop bombs on enemy ships.
Click for larger imageShips, planes and submarines are split into classes, such as heavy cruisers and light cruisers for the surface vessels and fighters and dive bombers for aircraft. Each class has different weapons, for example the SBD Dauntless plane has 2x50cal machine guns and 1x1000 lbs bomb, whereas a Destroyer warship boasts torpedoes and depth charges as well as a range of anti-aircraft weaponry. Understanding which classes and weapons are most effective against other similar enemy units is crucial if you want to improve your chances of successfully completing a mission; the range of units on offer effectively enhances the gameplay experience.
Players are able to take control of over 45 ships, including tankers, patrol ships and Destroyers, 24 different planes from recon aircraft to transport planes and a handful of submarines, so there’s plenty of opportunity to experiment and no reason whatsoever not to try out every unit available.