Posted January 09, 2018
high rated
Due to character limit being stupidly low beyond words on game-page, posting my short review here:
Awesome modern-day title which will appeal to old-school gamers (as in title, particularly Silent Service and overall, Microprose titles fans will feel right at home). It is rather easy to learn, but NOT trivialized, and *does* benefit tremendously from reading manual (which, as seen by some other comments here, is above skill check for many modern-day "gamers").
Main points:
*Much historical accuracy, yet compromises exactly where needed for fun gameplay
*dynamic campaign ("Battle for Atlantic" mode), which is main and most important aspect here (not twice the same), challenging but fair. In this mode, dynamic weather and historically accurate, grand-scale war efforts affect many aspects of gameplay, from unit visibility, weapon and planes availability etc, to convoy routes
* Sinking ships based on buoyancy and flooding of compartments - and it works really well! You will jump with joy when your lucky AP shell hits the deck just above armor belt, piercing magazine under main turret and sink big ship in first salvo due to capsizing, Hood style. Or curse, when the enemy keeps sailing (if barely) after ton of hits that resulted in balanced flooding (albeit, ships that are damaged beyond practical repair/unable to reach port may be force-scuttled as *after* battle result).
* As a bonus result from the above, no two ships (or instances of sinking same ship) ever sink the same - the morbid fascination of watching them submerge for the last time, even after hundreds of battles, deserves own bullet point.
* Various configuration options, allowing it to have really decent and non-trivial battles on max realism and difficulty mode (no much sense to play on anything less IMO in game like that, but if you feel overwhelmed, you can change settings, even mid-campaign)
* Hot-seat multiplayer (sadly single battles only, dynamic multiplayer campaign would rox!) and single-battles, both custom and historical scenarios.
* Last but not least, the atmosphere. It is just the right mix of realism and playability to make you feel submerged (pun intended) in the "real" efforts of WWII Atlantic struggles. I, old fart, enjoyed it immensely, yet it worked as well to naturally make my 9 years old son interested in historical aspects of the struggle, without being pompously "educational".
Cons are mostly nit-picking for veterans - like, Carriers could *really* use having CAP (Combat Air Patrol, if even by just few fighters without bombs in air during start of daytime battles, but they still can be utilized to great effects, by more experienced players), or torpedoes could have *little* horizontal direction drift added, less than in Pacific Fleet, but enough to make head-on torpedo attacks less reliable (as it was the case, historically), especially from planes. But those are, honestly, gimmicks.
All in all, wholeheartedly recommending! Was owning it already, but insta-buying as soon as I noticed it (finally) arrived on GOG.
---
Appendix:
Be sure to read more professionally-written review here:
http://www.simhq.com/_naval/atlantic-fleet-review-interview.html
Awesome modern-day title which will appeal to old-school gamers (as in title, particularly Silent Service and overall, Microprose titles fans will feel right at home). It is rather easy to learn, but NOT trivialized, and *does* benefit tremendously from reading manual (which, as seen by some other comments here, is above skill check for many modern-day "gamers").
Main points:
*Much historical accuracy, yet compromises exactly where needed for fun gameplay
*dynamic campaign ("Battle for Atlantic" mode), which is main and most important aspect here (not twice the same), challenging but fair. In this mode, dynamic weather and historically accurate, grand-scale war efforts affect many aspects of gameplay, from unit visibility, weapon and planes availability etc, to convoy routes
* Sinking ships based on buoyancy and flooding of compartments - and it works really well! You will jump with joy when your lucky AP shell hits the deck just above armor belt, piercing magazine under main turret and sink big ship in first salvo due to capsizing, Hood style. Or curse, when the enemy keeps sailing (if barely) after ton of hits that resulted in balanced flooding (albeit, ships that are damaged beyond practical repair/unable to reach port may be force-scuttled as *after* battle result).
* As a bonus result from the above, no two ships (or instances of sinking same ship) ever sink the same - the morbid fascination of watching them submerge for the last time, even after hundreds of battles, deserves own bullet point.
* Various configuration options, allowing it to have really decent and non-trivial battles on max realism and difficulty mode (no much sense to play on anything less IMO in game like that, but if you feel overwhelmed, you can change settings, even mid-campaign)
* Hot-seat multiplayer (sadly single battles only, dynamic multiplayer campaign would rox!) and single-battles, both custom and historical scenarios.
* Last but not least, the atmosphere. It is just the right mix of realism and playability to make you feel submerged (pun intended) in the "real" efforts of WWII Atlantic struggles. I, old fart, enjoyed it immensely, yet it worked as well to naturally make my 9 years old son interested in historical aspects of the struggle, without being pompously "educational".
Cons are mostly nit-picking for veterans - like, Carriers could *really* use having CAP (Combat Air Patrol, if even by just few fighters without bombs in air during start of daytime battles, but they still can be utilized to great effects, by more experienced players), or torpedoes could have *little* horizontal direction drift added, less than in Pacific Fleet, but enough to make head-on torpedo attacks less reliable (as it was the case, historically), especially from planes. But those are, honestly, gimmicks.
All in all, wholeheartedly recommending! Was owning it already, but insta-buying as soon as I noticed it (finally) arrived on GOG.
---
Appendix:
Be sure to read more professionally-written review here:
http://www.simhq.com/_naval/atlantic-fleet-review-interview.html