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Naval War: Arctic Circle
Paradox Interactive's
Naval War: Arctic Circle offers strategy fans a hardcore experience,
simulating a great deal of factors in real-life naval combat accurately.
The story pits NATO vs Russia and its allies, unfolding through cut
scenes between missions. It is sort of a near-future tale of two
superpowers struggling over resources, and feels quite real. Players can
play from either perspective in two separate campaigns, creating
additional replay value. This is a plus for hardcore strategy buffs, as
you are able to enjoy the strategic elements of the battles from either
side with different tools at your command in each.
Paradox has taken great measures to ensure a
realistic game world here, with everything from weather effects to real
and experimental units of the surface, subsurface, and aerial types. The
game world is a realistic map of the entire North Atlantic Ocean, a
total of 35 million square kilometers. Modern long-range precision
weaponry is included, making for naval battles that were never possible
before the present day. With all of this detail and accuracy, you can
probably guess that this game isn't user-friendly, arcade action. You'd
be right.
When you see Arctic Circle described as an RTS, the
comparison in your mind shouldn't be to games like Starcraft for Age of
Empires. Arctic Circle is a hardcore simulation at heart, providing
players with a way to simulate commanding a fleet of naval war machines.
This experience is even better if you've got friends with a similar
interest - multiplayer is provided in both LAN and internet forms. Like
many hardcore strategy games of this type, Arctic Circle features a time
bar which can be used to speed up the game, as everything is run at
real-time speed by default. Clearly, you don't want to order a ship to
move across the ocean and then sit and wait for it to happen in real
time.
Graphically, Naval War: Arctic Circle is very
attractive. Expect simple (yet elegant) top-down maps of the oceanic
battlefield as well as nifty 3D representations of the units commanded
(which can be turned off if your system's specs aren't quite up to par).
The sound is quite sufficient, if not particularly amazing. Controls are
what you would expect from simulation games of this type - lots of stuff
to do, and most of it will be done by clicking through endless menus
with your mouse. Complicated stuff at first, but you'll quickly get used
to it. Players who are not accustomed to these types of games may find
it difficult to get started, though.
Overall, Naval War: Arctic Circle offers a great
simulation experience for military buffs and fans of the genre. Be
warned: it's not everyone's cup of tea. But if it is, you may just find
Arctic Circle a must-have for your collection. With the low price point,
you cannot miss.
- Josh Waters
BUY Naval War Arctic Circle here!
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