Great port, nice graphics, runs well, FUN.

I recently purchased both Battlestations: Midway (M) and Battlestations: Pacific (P). While my separate review of P was not so positive, M is a very fun game which provides a decent experience for historical simulation gamers while providing a nice arcade thrill for those who choose to take control of individual units during battles. The graphics and sounds are outstanding, there is a nice fictional storyline tying the single-player campaign together, the controls are very customizable, it has one of the best tutorials Ive ever seen in any computer game, and it runs really well even with all eye candy turned on with low-end hardware (I have a late-2012 Mac Mini). Feral ported the game from the PC version and did an outstanding job: Ive had zero crashes or other problems and this is not the norm with other games ported by other companies. The only thing I wish Feral had included was the ability to play in windowed mode instead of being stuck in full-screen mode because windowed mode makes it easy to respond to an email or otherwise use other applications with a simple pause of the game rather than having to finish a battle and then quit out of the game to do so – which is the only option in full-screen mode.

There are a few ahistorical stats assigned to certain units. For example, Wildcats can out-turn Zeros. Um, no; thats just not right. Interestingly, the descriptive text says that Zeros are more maneuverable while Wildcats are sturdier, and I think that the latter is represented properly in-game but not the former. These sorts of things are not game-breaking but I point them out because the producers of the game could fix this with a simple patch at any time since it involves just changing some of the numerical values assigned to units. I admit this might make the game less balanced (for example, it would make Wildcats less powerful and therefore give more of an advantage to the Japanese player, which is the enemy AI in the single-player campaign) but for an historical simulation aficionado like myself that would be a fair trade.

But thats a very minor quibble. I thought it was going to bother me more than it does when Im actually playing the game. Other fudges such as returning planes immediately being repaired and rearmed, infinite range and fuel and gun ammo, etc. really dont weigh against the game at all. Plane range/loiter time WAS a huge tactical factor in WWII Pacific-theater carrier battles and the game might have been made stronger by including this but once you accept that its not a part of the simulation the rest of the game is so immersive that you quickly forget about it.

I am very, very bad at controlling the individual units, especially planes. Being an old-school tabletop wargamer (you know, the kind of geek that plays out historical battles and other events on a big map with little cardboard counters stacked all over the place) and now a middle-aged guy with poor hand-eye coordination, the arcade style of play when controlling the individual units is not my thing. But even I enjoy jumping into a plane or a sub now and then when I dont need to give my attention to operational movement and deploying planes. The planes, especially, do not operate according to the laws of physics; its not a flight simulator by any means. But Im sure there are plenty of folks who dont care how accurate the flight characteristics are. Even for me it is certainly fun to line up the crosshairs, press the weapon release, and then follow the bomb you just dropped from your Dauntless as it crashes into the deck of an enemy ship and explodes. For those who want to do the most damage with the least losses, and are good at the arcade aspects of the game, you can get a lot more hits on the enemy and avoid a lot more damage to your own units by jumping in and controlling them yourself whenever your attention isnt being demanded by one of the games broader strokes. Some of the earlier single-player missions require that you take arcade-style control over a unit, but if you dont like that dont worry because you only have to play them once each and theyre generally the shortest and easiest missions in the game.

If you are looking at both M and P, I strongly recommend M over P. Theyre both fun games, but P has several basic game design decisions that pretty much ruin the experience for me (ex: torpedoes and bombs just respawn on planes a minute or so after theyre dropped - RIDICULOUS) even though it has better graphics and a lot more scenarios to play in single-player mode. M, for all its inaccuracies and simplification fudges, is otherwise a much better game and well worth a look for anyone interested in the history of the period, the tactics of the WWII Pacific theater, or who just wants to spend 10 minutes to a few hours playing a very, very visually appealing and fun game.

JohnMHammer about Battlestations: Midway