Carrier Deck
Had I reviewed this game early on, I would have rated it positive, but having packed in well over 100 hours now, the design flaws and bugs are now standing out like sore thumbs. If Steam had a better review system with a “so so” option, I would choose that instead of pure thumbs down.
First let me say, that for many it will still be worth $10. You can still have a lot of fun with it. So, I’m not telling you to avoid it, but rather, know what you’re getting before buying. (Edit: This game is no longer in active development and there is no roadmap for the future at the time of this edit)
– Real player with 236.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Management Games.
Carrier Deck is a very nicely disguised “spinning plates” game where you need to quickly reprioritize your assets to meet changing needs, and “keep as many balls in the air as you can”. Unfortunately, some arbitrary design decisions (necessary for game design) also marred some of the enjoyment. Still, the game’s fun to play with.
You are the commander of the air wing, including any marine detachments and special forces detachments. You need to protect your carrier from threats in the air (bombers), on the surface (hostile warships), below the surface (submarines), and even land-based threats. To deal with them, are you armed with F/A-18 Hornets (and Super Hornets), SH-60 Seahawks (for anti-sub work), S-3 Subhunters, E-2 Hawkeye SWAC, and more. Launch appropriate search/patrol craft to watch for threats, scramble the right assets to attack each before they reach your carrier. In the meanwhile, receive cargo as they arrive.
– Real player with 145.1 hrs in game
Gunboat
BE AWARE! FOR GAMING VETERANS ONLY. This thing is not for newbies. There is no modern graphic technologies and other useless bullshit you are waiting for. Start The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Deep Purple, Creedence Clearwater Revival and welcome to the Jungle !!!
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Combat Games.
‘Mistah Kurtz - he dead’
It’s time to go back up the river. It’s time for one more mission. It’s time for Gunboat
Games need more switches. There are power switches for the engines. You can feel the boat come to life. Each gun has its own safety. Cruising through villages with the safety off has a threatening weight to it. Theres even a spotlight. Nothing is passive. You are Gunboat
Operating the entire PBR by yourself is easily mapped Z to M. From a 180 view in the cabin to the bow, main and aft guns, quickly jumping from one position to the next lets you become the too old for this **** captain to the kid manning the .50 cal passing around a picture of his new baby back home. Theres blocky beauty and danger around every bend all under a gorgeous and memory saving black sky. Become the forefront of naval superiority. Become Gunboat
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Steel Ocean
After over 1200 hours this game needs a proper review. I started this by accident one day when I was bored around a year ago. Now because of this I can’t play other games cause I have no time left for them. I will give you some facts, good and bad, all mixed up as I go so hang on with me. This will be a long review, very very long. (I even hit the max character amount so had to shorten it)
When you start the game, it will be hard. You will be playing against bots at first and even they will slaughter you. If by luck you get matched against a long time player you will be shouting CHEATER!! No, he is not cheating he just understands the game mechanics. When I first saw another player play like that I wanted to be him. Now after all this time people who seemed like gods at the time are cannon fodder, at least some :-)
– Real player with 2465.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Free to Play Games.
What are the differences between WoWS and SO?
That is a huge question… So a Huge Comparison wall of text is Incoming. But hey, at least it is better than “Oh mah gawd __ is obviously better!” without anything else? And there is a TL;DR.
To open: I was a part of the first wave of WoWS CBT (Prior to the buy-your-way-in) and had been a part of the Closed Alphas for WoT and WoWP. I played until SO came out in November of last year and have been playing SO more than WoWS since then other the odd WoWS match now and again or the the occasional “Lets do Warships to get an event ship” sort of thing (ARP Haruna, Kirishima, etc.). Since then, I now have 1,355.2 Hours in SO. So I’ve a bit of experience playing both games for some time, and am familiar with the business practices/trends that WG has shown since Tanks came out.
– Real player with 1882.0 hrs in game
Battle Fleet 2
Now six years later I thought I would take a look one last time at a now classic turn based game. If you remember the old Panzer General series games or if you loved Naval tactical games. Then Battle Fleet 2 may be for you. Let’s take one last look at what Battlefleet 2 did well and what they can do to improve if they continue the series.
PROS
Game play: Let’s face it. You don’t need much for great naval fun. It has a lot to offer for the price. Great Carriers, subs, destroyers, planes, all on an overhead risk type map. Solid sounds, effects, colors, layouts, all you need to get started.
– Real player with 97.5 hrs in game
There are two parts of the game, the overall map of the pacific and naval battles. Both are turn-based.
The naval battles are fun if you enjoy turn-based fights based largely upon positioning your ships and estimating distances. Though unfortunately, you don’t choose the starting formation of your fleet. It is definitely satisfying to see the shell hit from over a mile away, you can really feel the distance between the ships, and then see it crash into the ship and possibly disable some critical component such as one of their guns, or engine. The armament of your ships will also play a role in how things go. For example, the submarine can be shielded from most damage by being submerged, but can only hit the enemy from 1500 yards while the largest guns have a range of 4000 yards. It pays to have a versatile fleet. The enemy may have a tightly formed fleet with many AA guns, making your carriers less effective, or battleships with big guns but few/no torpedos, making your subs more effective. The battleship can otherwise outshoot anything, but can fall prey to repeated airstrikes from an aircraft carrier that is too far away to shoot. Ramming is possible and could be fun, but I’ve only accidently rammed my own ships. Try not to do that. When your ships can destroy the enemy from miles away, you tend not to end up getting so close. The AI on hard provides enough of a challenge to be interesting.
– Real player with 94.1 hrs in game
Daldos
An accurate rebuild of scandinavian game. With lovely music, character models and multiplayer!
Looking forward for addons and new features
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Dangerous Waters
You bought this game hoping you could renact scenes from Tom Clancy’s Hunt for The Red October. You get into a single mission where you have to stalk merchant shipping without being detected. The learning curve is steep, you go full speed ahead and begin to cavitate. An enemy torpedo quickly finds its way towards you, swiftly sending your sub 10,000 feet to the bottom of the pacfic. You ragequit and stay clear of the game for a day, thinking of refunding it. But something inside you, the elite sub captain trapped within pulls you back into the game. You read the games manuals and quickly learn how sonar and detection equipment works. feeling brave, you try the mission again and manage to complete it flawlessly. fast forward a few weeks of gameplay, and you have completely mastered the game. You are a fearsome captain, makeing your name infamous with your enemies. politicans adore you, ladies swoon over you. You are a ledgend.
– Real player with 70.6 hrs in game
Dangerous Waters is a very serious naval warfare simulator with a primary focus on submarines, although other platforms are also controllable, such as the MH-60R and the Oliver Hazard Perry. The game’s complexity arises not from navigating within your submarine or from having to press a million buttons – indeed, these mechanics don’t even exist. Instead, the game’s interface is surprisingly simple for the most part as you move instantly from one screen to the next, and the graphics are rather bland, even on the highest settings, which is a bit understandable considering the game came out about a decade ago (as of this review year). Instead, the difficulties for the new player will be conceptual, and the learning curve for that will probably feel rather high at first.
– Real player with 68.3 hrs in game
Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic
So, Just to preface my positive review, you MUST get the Wolves of Steel mega-modset for this game off of the Subsim(dot)com for it to work right. A quick google search will direct you to the forum to find it.
With the modset, the game is amazing. Manually inputting info into the TDC, customizing the game-play to the level of realism you want (within reason), and sinking tonnage. There is nothing more satisfying than sneaking a volley of torpedoes through a destroyer screen to sink a Queen Elizabeth-class Battleship, and get away with it, or hit a 7km torpedo shot because you did the proper calculations and they never even knew you were there. (personal experiences, yours may vary) There are still a few bugs here and there in the modset, but once you recognize them, a quick save and reload will fix them up.
– Real player with 267.6 hrs in game
This game had so much promise. You can get around the hell of Uplay, but the game is really really, really buggy. And the fact that most mods dont work with the steam version, your just sol. The game is visually beautiful, and there is something inertly great about being stealthy in the sea and then evaiding capture, but the bugs will have you ripping your hair out. Radar contacts sometimes dont work, and you’ll be searching for multiple hours real time waiting to run into someone. AA gunners wont attack planes that are VERY relentless, let alone actually kill them. 6/10 times they wont even shoot at the plane when you have the gun armed, manned and ready; and when they do attack, 8/10 times even an experienced gunner wont bring them down.
– Real player with 239.6 hrs in game
Silent Hunter®: Wolves of the Pacific
This game is perhaps the best submarine simulator out there. It HAS it’s problems and I sometimes think that the Ubisoft people should be shot for the bugs they left in the game. But the bugs are avoidable/fixable for the most part and there’s an active support community at SUBSIM.COM that make it lovable. After a hiatus of two years I’m back at it playing the Fall of the Rising Sun mod and loving it.
This is NOT the arcade game that allows you to plink at ships from your submarine. If your emphasis is on realism, you can make it very challenging and still be fun.
– Real player with 474.6 hrs in game
I was hesitant to purchase a 12 year old game. But all indications and articles I read was that this game was the defacto best simulation game for a submarine.
I also wanted a WWII American side war game.
This game delivers on both, aged as it is.
The graphics are not 2019 standards by any means but in general they are pretty darn good.
The mechanics of the gameplay and submarine simulation are amazing.
There is plenty to keep you interested.
I have been playing for about 40 days straight and have gone through a WWII career from 1941 to 1945. Lots of fun.
– Real player with 360.8 hrs in game
Silent Hunter® III
Silent Hunter III …. a 2005 game but….. Remember what i already tell you before…..
Old but gold…
SH III is the best of the series….. !
Why ?? I will tell you why.
Because Silent Hunter III is very close to whats happen in 39 45 under the water…..
Yeah i am a big u-boat fan, i live close to the sea in a place where still WW II Bunker.
88 Canon, S Boot base and more………
I collect WW I and WW II insignia, u-boat insignia, badge, eitterkreuz, bayonet bullet….
This dont make me a nazist x)
– Real player with 238.3 hrs in game
SH3 is one of those games that you need to invest time in. It is a perfect example of a “Dad game,” as Yahtzee Crowshaw once put it. It’s meticulously detailed, and you must learn all of the different eccentricities of the sub to be a great captain.
It uses the real-life technological limitations from WWII to define the gameplay. Want to fire off a torpedo? A standard gas-powered torpedo leaves a trail of bubbles in the water, which ships can detect in advance and will swerve to avoid your torpedo. You can fire an electric torpedo, but you’ll need to be close, or else the battery in the torpedo will die and it won’t reach your target. SH3 is filled with these sorts of tactical nuances that really make it satisfying to play.
– Real player with 201.3 hrs in game
Sub Command
Not so much a game as a second job: you can let the auto-crew do much for you but let’s face facts: the appeal of this game is how much it demands from you. Want to work out the firing solution for the 89cm ADCAP torpedo manually? Of course you do, this game was written for you.
The plotline (nasty Russians go to war with the USA for some reason) is not really developed - I’m halfway through the US campaign - BUT the opportunity to play the campaign from the Russians' perspective is a very welcome, plus you have to re-learn the entire control system, this time using the metric system.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
This is the sequel to Jane’s 688(i) Hunter/Killer but now under the flag of Sonarlysts. Most features have already been mentioned in my review of 688(i) so I will try to tell only the difference between these two:
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Higher resolution and better graphics
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3 plattforms to operate (688(i), Seawolf, Akula)
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Single missions and campaigns which can be played as US or russian.
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Use your voice to command your ship completely (navigation, firing at a certain contact etc.)
The most important part feature, which came afterwards for Sub Command, is the big SCX mod:
– Real player with 31.8 hrs in game