Although planes and ships exhibit arcade physics, they do not all fly or sail exactly the same bombers and carriers maneuver more slowly than PT boats and fighters. Visually, this is true but in an arcade game, a Type-B Japanese sub feels pretty much the same as a US Gato sub.

The game boasts having 60 planes and warships, from Yamato battleships, B-17 bombers, Elco torpedo boats, Zero fighters, Northampton Class cruisers, Brewster Buffalo fighter, and Yorktown carriers, to name a few. The ships, planes, and subs are not difficult to manage of course, their sailing behavior and physics are not realistic, either. Speed, direction, and aiming the guns are about all the player controls.

This is an arcade action game, not a simulation, and the controls are fairly easy to master.

Anyone intimidated by the complexity of a simulation like Silent Hunter 3 or Sub Command will love Battlestations: Midway. The action begins with a basic set of tutorial missions that quickly get the player up to speed with the controls and features. It is a WWII Pacific theater naval action game that gives the player planes, subs, and warships to command, similar to some of the other naval games Subsim has reviewed over the last year (Navy Field, Warship Gunner 2, Pacific Storm). Battlestations: Midway does not look or play like a game trapped in development purgatory at all. The first question that came to my mind was would Battlestations: Midway be a dated game? A 2004 game released in 2007? If that occurred to you, relax. Jump ahead four years, factor in publisher Eidos (Tomb Raider), and Battlestations: Midway is here. Well, we all know what “soon” means in the game business. I contacted Mithis Games in March 2003 to get some details and the rep told me they had just signed a publishing deal and to “be patient, more info would be coming soon”. Occasionally some artwork would surface on the web, showing tantalizingly detailed ships and provoking a flurry of speculation. A few years back, there was this naval game called Battlestations: Midway being developed by someone called Mithis Games.

Midway gameplay world of warships