from nickelodeon games to reviews Naval War | Arctic Circle
Summary: Naval War: Arctic Circle is a first in a series of Real Time Strategy (RTS)
games where the player battle enemy naval and aerial forces questing for power and ultimate world domination.
Middle of the road. That's where Naval War: Arctic Circle lands. This ambitious sim comes with significant strategic depth, two involving campaigns sure to test your abilities as an admiral, and even reasonably thorough tutorials sure to get newbies over the learning curve. But it's hard to fully appreciate these good points due to the clumsy interface, the terrible visuals and sound, and the unforgivable absence of any way to save your progress during missions.
Visuals aren't exactly cutting edge, but you can at least expand the 3D window to the full screen for a close-up look at your fleet.
Visuals aren't exactly cutting edge, but you can at least expand the 3D window to the full screen for a close-up look at your fleet.
Everything about Naval War: Arctic Circle is straightforward. You get two lengthy campaigns depicting both sides of a war between NATO and Russia in the 2030s and a one-vs.-one multiplayer mode. The story unfolds during talking-head dialogue sequences between missions, chronicling the conflict over northern resources made more accessible since global warming got rid of that pesky ice. Conversations are witty and well written, which draws you into scenarios despite the subpar graphics in these scenes. You have to use your imagination to get past bucket-bottom art that features static faces drawn with all the talent of a third grader who has just graduated from coloring books. Photoshopping pics of actual naval officers would have been a better option.
In fact, the overall visual quality of the game is lackluster, though this is partyl in keeping with the subject matter. The focus is solely on commanding naval task forces from the perspective of an officer sitting in a war room. So the interface is bleak, comprising a simple top-down map screen main view with little ship and plane icons along with a small 3D window that tracks units out on the sea and in the air. The audio presentation isn't much better, thanks to the out-of-place rock music and the lack of significant battle sound effects. Nothing gets in the way of waging war on the high seas, but nothing adds to the story or atmosphere, either.
Witty dialogue sequences add a bit of flavor to the campaigns, even though the scenarios play out more like bland training exercises.
Witty dialogue sequences add a bit of flavor to the campaigns, even though the scenarios play out more like bland training exercises.
You can tweak the interface to give the 3D view more real estate, but the quality of the unit models and their choppy animations make doing so a waste of time unless you're aiming for nothing more than a close-up of an enemy blowing up real good. Controls are unintuitive, and everything feels a bit out of place. For at least the first few missions, you need to constantly remind yourself how to do basic things, such as send choppers out on recon missions, due to oddities like the need to close some windows to give orders and the inability to use mouse scroll to pan the map around.
Gameplay is dry in Naval War: Arctic Circle, but there is a lot of tactical depth. Even though this is a naval game, you command full task forces and spend at least as much time sending helicopters to hunt subs and fighters to intercept enemy fighters as you do playing Popeye. You are given a tremendous amount of control over your units, as well. Everything in the game is geared to be closely overseen, if not micromanaged, including loadouts and individual attacks. Units do function on their own, though. Forget about a dogfight, for instance, and your pilots will deal with enemy missiles by initiating evasive maneuvers all on their lonesome. That said, there isn't any room for customizing your fleet, picking ships, and so on. Campaign scenarios are set in stone, as are the non-dynamic campaigns, so you need to work with the hands that are de
alt.
