Battlestations: Midway

If Milton Bradley’s gaming gurus have taught us anything, it is that battleships should be sunk. Battlestations: Midway makes sinking the steel giants of the ocean as satifying as hearing someone shout “You sank my battleship!” However, Battlestations: Midway is much more than a game consisting of blowing ships up. It is an interesting blend of real-time strategy and action that does an excellent job of appealing to both genres.

Become a fighter pilot and take to the skies!


Battlestations: Midway takes place during World War II in the Pacific Theater. It is a single-player campaign where you play as Henry Walker. He is a Navy recruit who shows up just in time for the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. Your skills as a commander are quickly put to the test in such battles as the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. Between battles you will see how Henry Walker rose through the ranks to become the captain of the aircraft carrier the USS Yorktown. A lot of the time the dialogue in the story seems forced and at times almost comically bad. However, the characters do a good job of personalizing the battles. It is heartwarming to see your recruit going from a tiny PT boat to commanding fleets of ships out on the open ocean. There are 11 missions in all in the single-player campaign. Some of these mission can take almost an hour to complete, but the whole campaign can usually be finished in four or five hours. There are also 10 extra challenge missions, but they are not as exciting as the larger story battles. Despite these bonus missions and a very good multiplayer games which is also included, it is disappointing that the campaign of the single-player is so short.

It is true that all of the battles are battles that take place at sea. However, there is enough variety in the units at your disposal and in the missions themselves that you are provided with a unique experience each and every time you play the game. You usually begin with a handful of units at your command and just a few simple objectives such as defending your airfield or destroying all enemy carriers. For larger battles, you have a tactical map you can look at. By using this map, you can command all of your subs, planes and ships to move and attack. It takes a little while to get used to using the map and commanding many units at the same time. The artificial intelligence in this game works very well, and you do not have to worry about your units not obeying orders or behaving irrationally. This artificial intelligence is so good that in the larger battles, you will find that you are spending about 75% of the time commanding your units from the tactical map.

The other portion of your time will be spent in directly controlling your units which turns out to be a lot of fun. You can do any one of several tasks including captaining a sub as it stalks an enemy ship, man the aircraft guns on one of the battleships, become a pilot and take part in an intense dogfight and more all in a single battle! All of the units have special controls, abilities, weapons and limitations that you will need to learn in order to make the best use of all of your forces. Since this is NOT a simulation game, it will not take you very long to get a feel for each unit you are controlling. If you want to develop a strategy in the game, then you will want to take a hands-off approach.

You are given a few other responsibilities besides that on going on strafing runs and being the commander of a fleet of ships. There ar airfields and shipyards in the game as well as aircraft carriers. You are usually given a choice as to what ship or airplane you wish to issue , as well as want weapons you wish for them to have. If it is your mission to sink a sub, then you will need to send out some dive bombers that are equipped with depth charges. As your units are destroyed, you can keep sending out new ones to take their place.