We hoisted the abaft, tightened the fardage and battened down the mizzenmast as we set sail once more for World of Warships; if our nautical terminology had you frowning in doubt then have no fear, we have no idea what we’re doing on a ship and this much was clear as we checked the game now that it has launched. The new German and Soviet fleets have been launched and we got a press account to check them for ourselves and see what all the fuss was about!

On our account we had access to every ship on the USA and Japanese tech tree, as well as the starter ships for the new Soviet and German trees, including already being provided the Premium Ships from the Soviets’: the Aurora (T3) Cruiser and the Murmansk (T5) Cruiser, (there’s currently none available for the Germans). It is with a saddened heart that the reality is without a flag we personally couldn’t tell one ship from another, even some of the various class of ships looked pretty similar to us, and so we hold our hands up and say the nuances of each ship can only truly be felt in the hands of more skill captains that us.

From the initial Premium Ships and Starter Ships available we preferred the Ammunition & Consumables on the Murmansk, complete with torpedoes and a scouting plane to give us Spotting options for long range attacks. Where possible we jumped in the Murmansk more than the others, but the reality is that our personal battles were generally so short lived that we’d have to play the next battle in one of the other dozen ships we had available waiting for the previous one to finish to jump back in the Murmansk.

We started with an account at level 8 and so we were put up alongside players who already had a general idea of how to play the game, and play it relatively well. Focusing mostly on the Co-OP mode (going up against AI ships was hard enough for us) we didn’t perform too badly, but we put them down more to the simple controls than anything to do with our skill. Steering the ship and controlling your gun turrets isn’t particularly difficult, even aiming at long range for some reason feels quite natural and without any tutorial available to us we were still managing to land some long range shots, getting hit and even getting our fair share of kills, able to time our shots firing ahead of a moving ship so that it sailed into where our shots would land.

 

What sets players apart really are the finer points of combat, and this is something that we only started to pick up after quite a few games. First and foremost is the importance of positioning; this is vital for both maximum offensive and defensive tactics, on the defensive side you generally want to keep your own target small so coming at a ship head on means you’re smaller, where giving them the full length of your ship side on with an exposed broadside is asking for a hull peppered with torpedoes. Furthermore each ship has a variety of gun turrets dotted about its deck, which have a specific firing arc that all try to aim towards your main gun cursor; positioning your ship in a certain ways means you can generally use some gun turrets and not others, which again is extremely important when planning and preparing where you enemy is going to appear from.

Map awareness is another key tactic that took us a while to get used to, though again, even without a tutorial and it being around 7 months since we last checked out the game it only took a few matches until we started to feel comfortable. The movement of ships, the relative ease of combat, the intuitive controls have all made for a rather enjoyable experience that, if strategy shooters are your thing, makes for a generally fun game. Surprisingly, an being a far cry from the original release, combat doesn’t feel as slow and ploddy as we originally thought and once you find yourself in a battle then the exchange of gunfire quickly gets the heart going for the more competitive natured gamers like us; once you start getting hit then it can take quite a while and some evasive maneuvers to get to a safe distance providing no one chases you.

Overall the game is definitely feeling like the type of polish launch product we’d have expected and the addition of the new nations will not only appeal to players who like to focus on a single nation, but also bring the game more up to speed with the other “World Of” titles. Definitely a game worth checking out, the short match times and relative simplicity will let you know straight away whether it’s the kind of game you can get into or not.

CONCLUSION

• Graphics: 8


• Performance: 10


• Gameplay: 8

• Pros: Exciting battles, strategic planning and positioning, plenty of different ships.


• Cons: Movement to initial objectives can take quite a while, different maps don’t necessarily feel like they have a huge impact.

Final Score: 8'5

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