How to say it. The game is...bad. It's not to say it's not without some of its own charm, it does have that to some degree, but overall theHow to say it. The game is...bad. It's not to say it's not without some of its own charm, it does have that to some degree, but overall the gameplay is frustrating at best, mind numbingly bad at worst. Where to start? On the plus side, it's relatively fast paced, and since it's not a sim, but something more akin to the Uncharted Waters games from the NES days, that's okay. Enemies are in an abundance, so picking a fight isn't hard.
It's when you GET to the fights that things become annoying. Within your first tutorial missions, you'll run into the main issue the game has. Lag. Here's the thing. It runs on the unity engine, so we can't fault it for that, but even with the textures to their lowest setting, a computer which runs ESO at its MAX settings, will still tank. This is largely due to the way the ocean is rendered, as well as the rain that never seems to stop falling. If you can suffer through the graphics induced (there's irony, considering the game's graphics) lag, you run into the second major flaw. The game's target detection is horrible. You select your guns, point and fire; only to watch your shots go in a direction you never told them to go. No matter how many times you click on the enemy ship to fire on it, your shots will routinely go further than the target. Firing with the guns is only barely effective when you figure a way around the game's system, usually by randomly clicking shorter than you want to fire, in the hope that your shells will actually get to the right target.
Torpedoes run very fast, and you'll find more often than not, you're using those as your primary weapons. Picking a ship without them, will typically lead to defeat and game over.
When it comes to depth charges, things really get weird. (and by weird, I mean bad.) Destroying a submarine with a depth charge in this game, requires you to hit the proverbial nail on the head. Sounds easy, but try hitting that nail during an earthquake, while blinded, and you get the general idea of depth charges in this game.
To make things worse, your depth charges NEVER go where you intend them to, meaning most naval battles against submarines is a great deal of turning, cursing at the bad controls, and hoping, just HOPING you can get one to hit. Depth charges, historically, didn't have to actually hit the sub to damage it. Even the most arcade based games seem to understand that getting them in the general vicinity is enough to sink or damage a ship. Yet for some unknown reason, in Victory at Sea, this isn't the case. Here, you have to hit the thing, and not just with one depth charge, but ALL of your depth charges.
I get it that the developers are indie, there's nothing wrong with that. However, I think this game is FAR from ready to release. If anything it's in an Alpha state with a great deal more work. Work that by all accounts, the devs aren't willing, or perhaps able to put into it.… Expand