A rich experience that you need to work at
I must admit that out of the case this game does not look to do much more than it's predecessor (unless you count the fact that it gives you an achievment for playing the original) But having completed the japanese campaign to gold level and started on the american forces I can see that am lot of the control refinement has gone into this worthy sequel.
The good:- nothing else like this in the market. it really gives an awesome feeling to be piloting a warplane then the next minute off to a battleship to shell an enemy island then to a sub to torpedo the incoming troop transports. I have actually always hoped for a star trek or star wars game where you fight with capital ships and have to concern yourself with repairs and allocation of resources on the ship but sadly none have ever really taken hold on the console.
Multiplayer is a rich and vibrant community but finding a local game in australia is a bit hit and miss. Thankfully even with a terrible connection it makes little to no difference as the controls of most ships take a while to respond at the best of times.
The Bad:- theres no way to say this nicely buit this is a buggy game. in 6 hours of game play I have had it lock up 9 timesand given that some levels can go on for 40 plus minutes a lock up can have you sceaming like a kamakazie pilot. Thankfully there are a few scattered checkpioints that you can go back to even after a crash.
AI: and this is the other issue given that you can be in charge of up to 100 units including complicated formations of ships and planes you would hope that the AI would do a good job. Sadly this is not the case. in one mission a german sub under my command when instructed to attack would promptly turn tail and flee firing a single torp from it's rear facing launched instead of a dozen from it's front. It's this sort of thing that leaves you desperately trying to control things manually and makes the game a little bit more like diner dash than an epic fleet war experience.
All in all it is a good game and I can recommend it to anyone, I just hope they patch it soon as crashes coudl easily turn a good game community off.
