Reviews

[JDC]

I've read the reviews at IGN and Gameplay. Although fair, the reviewers show little knowledge of Age of Sail warfare. I wonder if any realistic game can ever get a review these days, given the woeful lack of knowledge of most reviewers.

[Andrew Lonon]

Jim:

Your observations are like a microcosm of the whole game industry where ‘market forces’ seem more important than both realistic games and even fun.

However, how realistic is it actually to play one of these games on a computer? It seems fairly abstracted to me, that is to say – quite different from what Nelson, or De Grass (SP?) would have experienced. One (fairly wild) thought I had for Salvo II is to have a ‘Crew Interface’ where the Captain or Admiral only had the option of ‘talking’ to his First Officer, Helmsman, Flag Captain, Signal Crew & Midshipmen. With the right graphics and enough ‘character,’ that would start to be a ‘Realistic’ Captain or Admiral Sim.

[rich4421972]

The few reviewers that actually trouble with games of substance like Salvo! complain about the lack of music or rolling wave sounds and even the realism of the boat reflections on the water.

Personally, I think it would be just fine if the game were represented by square tiles resting on a blue map of hexes with brown blobs representing islands and land (square grey tiles could be used to represent shore batteries).

Gamespot's and IGN's reviews seem to conflate two things: the purpose of a strategy/wargame and the "necessary flash" needed to get a fancy game box on the shelves of the computer game store. I was really disappointed with what I read there. It shows that decent games that don't require a joystick (or a discerning brain) are not wanted anymore. As for graphics, the game is beautiful, the ships are realistic and the effects really do seem to be 3-dimensional.

Spruegames was kind enough to include an entire list of the game's graphics and sprites, but I hope they would listen (if just humorously) to my idea about the square tiles and hexes. I thought it was rather smart of me.