Battlestations: Midway is an odd blend of action and real-time strategy that ultimately falls a bit flat. With lackluster visuals, odd controls, and a constant focus on naval battles this one may have trouble finding an audience. With a short 4-5 hour single player game and a robust online component is it worth your hard earned cash? Let’s find out.


Command the vehicles.
As Henry Walker, it’s your job to win several large World War II battles by way of sea. To reinforce the story aspect of the game the developers have included cutscenes that make the whole affair feel like a bad B-movie. Thankfully Henry’s speak impediment doesn’t hold him back from rising in the ranks as you triumphantly become captain near the end of the game. WWII stories are pretty hard to mess up but Midway has done a find job of it.


The sea.
Most of your time in Midway will be spent strategically placing your ships in the strategy portion of the game. From the map screen you’ll be moving boats, subs, and planes all over the map in order to win a battle. The controls for this are near perfect and the gameplay is quite fun. It’s just when you actually take control of one of these vehicles is where things go awry. Every single one of the vehicles that you can jump into to control the action has a different control scheme. So every time you jump into a different one you’ll be struggling to remember which way is up and which way is down. Although after awhile it should be pretty trivial since the controls aren’t that complicated.