*Insert epic movie guy voiceover* – In a world, where things happen, only one ship can make a difference…
Yes we’re going to talk about what is possibly my most favourite game currently (besides Forza, well, anything) – World of Warships.
This is probably going to be the most biased review I have ever written so keep that in mind as I do not intend to hold back my absolute love for this game. I mean it has issues. Every game that is based on PvP combat has issues. Usually the players but we won’t dwell on that.
Anyways, I discovered World of Warships not long before I purchased my RX 480 video cards for Farpoint (which are now in Tantalus) and initially I thought I was not that impressed by the game. And indeed at the beginning I truly believe I was not. Sure the incredibly detailed ship models were what drew me in initially but the focus on total PvP without any sort of story campaign sort of made me less impressed.
You see at the time I was still playing World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV (the latter being one of the best Final Fantasy’s ever done let alone one of the best MMORPG’s ever done in my opinion) and I still wanted a story.
Well the funny thing was I kept starting up World of Warships. Over and over again. To a point where I wasn’t playing any other games much any more. To a point where I thought that I need to evaluate exactly what keeps me playing this game.
So here we are. Let me tell you why I play World of Warships. The following aren’t necessarily in order.
First of all it’s free. Of course if you want to gain experience faster there are things you can do to do that but it’s not something you have to do.
Secondly it’s a relatively quick load into the game and each match is on average about ten minutes. It’s perfect for playing when you just want a quick fix of shooting some tremendously huge guns.
Thirdly the ships are incredibly detailed. I mean to a point where the developer has told us that the recently release HMS Hood took nearly 110 days to design and detail. I mean that is some dedication. That said you see that in the cost of buying that ship. The Hood is a buy only ship that costs $44 CAD. I actually think that’s pretty fair considering the time it takes to get these models together. This is also why I have mentioned in the past on our podcast that World of Warships is the most expensive free to play game I’ve ever played.
Fourthly (?) the simulation is pretty good for lining up shot on enemies. There is no auto-targetting system. You have to lead your target appropriately if you want to hit it. And the game does not cheat and give you an idea where to fire. You get sights that give you a ballpark idea but you still need to think about what you are doing.
Fifthly (??) The different classes from Destroyer to Cruiser to Battleship to Aircraft Carrier all offer a different and unique way to play. Destroyers are fast and rely heavily on their torpedo armament and scoot in to battle quicker than anyone else. Cruisers have the best sort of all around play with relatively powerful guns while still having access to torpedos and can almost keep up with destroyers in some cases. Battleships are big heavy and for the most part slow though once you get to the later built ones they are much more maneuverable than the older ones. Battleships rely on their heavy guns for offence and their anti-aircraft guns for defense. Aircraft Carriers play a lot like an real-time strategy game in World of Warships and are really truly unique in the game. You command groups of fighters, torpedo bombers and bombers from an overhead map view while paying attention to the relative location of your ship and planning accordingly.
Sixthly (yep I did just write that) There’s a ton of things to earn while you play including camouflage of different types, different signal flags, and as you earn experience and credits you can buy new ships and ship upgrades all in a very easy to use interface. The camouflage and signal flags offer boosts to certain things on your ship during a batter. Often the camouflage will decrease the accuracy of opponents shots fired to a small degree and some of the other ones will give your commanding officer (which also offers perks to your ship by the way) and your ship more bonus experience.
There are also clans in the game now so you can run a sort of guild with your friends in the game. You can team up to 3 of them at a time as well which is great fun.
Things that nag me about the game aren’t really even game issues. It comes down to players. Every time you get a bunch of people playing a PvP game you get trolls. Every few battles there’s always one person that will be just ticked off at everyone and often times it’s their own fault. Engaging in chat only makes the infuriated so often the best thing to do is to just ignore them and report them if their language gets absolutely foul, which sometimes it does. IT’S A FREAKIN’ GAME PEOPLE. CHILL OUT!
Anyways, one of the best things about the game is it can run on a variety of older and new hardware. My brother runs the game at decent settings on a Core 2 Duo E8400 (3GHz) system with 4GB of memory and an ATI HD7770 graphics card. He says it runs great. I can run at full detail with my RX 480 (no the game doesn’t seem to support crossfire or at least you get no benefit from it so I just disable it before I play) and I get a consistent 60 or so FPS at 1080p.
Obviously I recommend everyone tries this game out but perhaps you aren’t as much in to naval battle? The first game this developer released was World of Tanks. Tanks are like one gun battleships to me. Never really enjoyed it. There’s also World of Warplanes. This was more interesting to me but I just didn’t like the controls. World of Warships is just so straight-forward. In fact it’s easy enough to get in to that its the first 3D game I think I’ve ever gotten my dad to play on a computer.
Seriously guys, Dan, Kevin and I recommend this one hands down as a great game to play. Again it’s even free!
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