Title: World of Warships
Year introduced: 2015
Country of origin: Belarus
Languages: Russian / English
Price: include premium accounts / options
Belarusian online game that allows users to take control of historical warships in naval battles. Just like its twin, World of Tanks, it is a mixture of arcade game and actual historical equipment. Even though the game was developed for over 4 years and then "improved" for a few more, the final effect is slightly disappointing, especially when it comes to gameplay.
But from the beginning - just like in the World of Tanks, the available warships were split between a few nations - Germany, United States, Soviet Union, Japan, etc. Just like in World of Tanks, we take part in multiplayer battles, where the teams are set up randomly, but taking under the consideration the tier level of the equipment used. The ships themselves were split between destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines (plus hybrids recently). Up to this point, everything seems alright - while gaining the experience you can improve your warships, train the crews, slightly improve the performance, etc. But when you play some battles, the flaws of the concept begin to emerge - first of all, the maps are more or less the same. Of course, on one of them the small islands in the middle, have palms on it and on the others there are rocks like in fjords, but overall, they are very similar and make very little change to the battles. On the other hand, the maps without islands would be pointless since the warships are all very similar in characteristics.
The battle modes are another flaw of the concept - they are more or less copy of World of Tanks modes, which makes very little sense. Most of the time, the goal is to take over the area, which means warships from one of the sides must spend some time within the zone to take over control of the area. In the case of tanks, it makes sense - on the sea... not really. The developers were later experimenting with additional modes, like convoys, but they were not very successful.
The warships are split into tiers and battle teams are set up using warships from similar tiers, which is fair, but at the same time, leads to boring battles. Contrary to tanks in World of Tanks, warships here have similar armament and armor, which means that anyone can easily damage your ship, and you can damage any other ship that is taking part in the battle. Again, it is fair, but sometimes boring. The steering and aiming in World of Warships is very simple, no problems there, the island gives some sort of cover if you know how to use them, but the rest of the game is equally unchallenging - just point at an enemy and click, wait for reload and click again. That’s about it when it comes to gameplay.
The aircraft carriers should have made a change, but unfortunately, they didn’t - they have to stay away because they are too vulnerable, their airplanes can do a bit of damage to your ship (especially torpedo bombers), but since when you are on the receiving end of such attack and have really limited options to operate anti-aircraft guns it isn’t much fun. With the introduction of submarines, the developers went wild because since most of the ships in the game had no anti-submarine weapons, they introduced... the magic planes. Yes, you can call on an ASW support and magical planes will swoop out of nowhere and drop depth charges wherever you want them to. That’s it when it comes to realism.
As it was mentioned, steering and aiming the weapons is easy, doesn’t require many skills to master them, but there is another problem with the concept - at the beginning of the battle, when the enemy is far away, it is all very simple, but when you fight in close range, especially using sniper mode there are too many things you should take care of. Not only you have to avoid the islands, aim the weapons, control the repair works, but also avoid other ships that may crash into you, keep an eye on torpedoes, airplanes, enemy ships, check the map and keep the aim on the target. To explain it simple - you simply can’t do it all. Since the ships are from similar tiers, equally armed and protected, you have to stick to other ships from your team; otherwise you will be dead soon. Each time you are alone and facing two enemy ships, you will be dead soon. That is why, since there are no tactics, there is no plan, you have to constantly check the map to see if other team members are still with you and did not turn around. When you use sniper mode you have to concentrate on the target to adjust the aim, but at the same time you have to look out for other targets and see if you are not in range of other enemies (especially since the range of naval guns could be over 15 km). Simply, there are too many things you have to take care of during the battle to avoid the errors - no wonder there are no single-handed warships in real life.
World of Warships sounded like a great idea to make a multiplayer naval battle simulator, but as usual, the reality is far from expectations - it is merely a copy of World of Tanks with water added to it, which is a shame. At the beginning, it was actually a pretty good and well-balanced game, but with each update, the company behind it made it worse because of their natural enemy, the corporate greed.
Rating: 2.25 / 5 based on 8 votes
★★☆☆☆
Tried it recently after few years of a break and it was surprisingly ok, I had some fun and... then I got to the tiers with more CVs and subs and they literally killed a pretty good game by introduction of that insanity. Just imagine playing on Bayern and being attacked 5 times within 2 minuts by planes and after that sub just obliterates you from range beyond your anti-sub planes. What a waste of a good game
sulky669 ()
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