http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/11/wot-i-think-naval-war-arctic-circle/
They really gave it a hammering.
They really gave it a hammering.
Your experience with the save-game issue is the only part of this article worth reading (overly critical/hostile opening sentence – check ).
The rest tells a story about the modern PC Gamer market. By the sounds of the article you’re at best an amateur fan of modern naval warfare and how a modern war between the greater military powers would be fought in the air and at sea. NW:AC is not designed for an amateur, as clearly demonstrated by your attempts to engage surface assets with your own surface assets (doh). To me that means either this game is attracting the wrong sort of gamer through bad PR and promotion, or people that aren’t in the target demographic have ended up reviewing it anyway. As NW:AC had very little promotion beyond the stale efforts of the Paradox team I suspect it’s the latter.
Masses of missiles getting shot down, aircraft being little more than bomb trucks shooting down other bomb trucks and submarines being completely “overpowered” (to use a gaming term) is simply how it works these days. This is why Russia has ships that carry more missiles than other nations entire navies combined (cause it only takes one to get through and it’s game over), and it’s why NATO powers have strong anti-missile defences (cause it only takes one to get through and it’s game over), be they other missiles launched from ships or indeed from aircraft (supposesly. maybe. in 2030. uhm.)
Learning how to use these correctly is why most navies now have more admirals than they do ships, it’s horribly complex and much like co-ordinating the dynamic campaign forces in EE:C/H or Falcon 4 (again to use a gaming reference) you’re fighting a losing battle unless you have spent a long time in, say, Harpoon learning which assets work better against others.
NW:AC falls down in an area you failed to mention; mission editing. But this is changing as a mission editor is on the way in upcoming patches, which I guarantee will alleviate the majority of your concerns. You can just stick down a massive carrier fleet from both sides of the GIUK gap and have at it, which is how the majority of people with a little interest in the subject area see it panning out. It’ll likely go a different way each time, it’ll be completely chaotic and you’d have a lot of fun. Oh and it’d be over a lot quicker than the realistic scenarios that the campaign presents.
For those of us that have spent an unhealthy amount of their I-dont-do-this-activity-to-earn-money time on learning how modern naval/air combat works (and no doubt are but drooling idiots to actual professionals in the field) we can create far more realistic and slow-paced scenarios that meet with modern conventions. Because if we’re honest, money rules the waves, not the USS Virginia. No leader will send a fleet that cost the country several hundred billion dollars against another when there’s any risk of actually losing a $500m destroyer, much less a multi-billion CVN. They would fight a war of attrition with submarines and long-range strike assets.
Rant over; I still love RPS and the articles within, really, but this one isn’t that high up the apple tree for me. This game is designed for hardcore naval nerds, and while yes it can be seen as aimed at bringing in an amateur audience, if you don’t know what you’re doing and try playing the game it will end in an 8-hour session at the end of which you have no hair or fingernails left, your house will be empty of coffee and snacks and you’ll feel like throwing your tower out of the nearest window at the earliest opportunity screaming “WHERE DOES HE KEEP GETTING THOSE FRICKIN’ MISSILES FROM?!” at the top of your voice.
I remember the hammering Harpoon itself received by much (most?) of the gaming press back when it came. Now, this generation of game journos consider Harpoon the pinnacle of perfection, and just trying to draw inspiration from it is sacrilege.
If we succeed, maybe in 20 years some poor upstart game developer will try its hands at a naval combat game, and be hammered in the press for not quite measuring up to their sentimental memories about some old game called Naval War: Arctic Circle.
I remember the hammering Harpoon itself received by much (most?) of the gaming press back when it came. Now, this generation of game journos consider Harpoon the pinnacle of perfection, and just trying to draw inspiration from it is sacrilege.
And yet it doesn't seem that this guy ever actually played Harpoon, or if he did, he didn't understand anything of it. He just waves the reference around to try to seem credible, while actually making the complaint that ships are too good at defending against missile attacks. Most modern warships are designed to do little ELSE but stop missile attacks, and whatever strategy he was using in NWAC sure as hell wouldn't cut it in Harpoon, I'd wager. A good naval war game just isn't going to be your standard "intuitive" strategy game with rock, paper, scissors mechanics, which is probably what was expected.
But ah well, who actually takes RPS seriously anyway?
The PC Gamer UK review is more complimentary, and with support going forward it'll be amazing
I don't want to think about how much money I've spent on the Harpoon franchise since its inception - long before the Internet was up. I have the "Ultimate" edition now, and basically it still looks and plays pretty much the same. Shame on AGSI for a CGA graphics interface, and shame on me for continuing to support it. Got the NWAC demo and will get the game. For $20, it's almost embarrassing. Great job guys - and you will succeed.