This review is not really much of a review. I aim this at trying to be more helpful to people who already bought the game and were disappointed.

Review part:
Play this game if you love older flight sims, naval sims, strategy and micromanagement.

Do not play this game if you expect an easy flight sim, easy RTS, easy naval sim, or easy sub sim. Nothing about this game is easy, it tries to do many things at once and does them all well. The challenge is in managing every little thing.

Me trying to be helpful part:

Tips and Tricks:
1: You have finite resources, manage them well. Use fighters as bombers by equipping them with bombs, use bombers as fighters by enabling CAP (Combat air patrol), and don't send your ships into the slaughter single file.
2: Damage control isn't a myth. There is actually a damage control screen. Pay attention to your ships issues and fix them accordingly in battle.
3: This game also has a RTS component. Use your map to issue orders. Your map is your friend, and your AI will hit more often than they miss (Excluding with free fire torpedos which are more likely to sink friendlies.)
4: You have to lead your targets and have a basic grasp of physics and timing. Physics is real in this game. Your speed, the speed of your target, and your overall range is not calculated for you excluding aircraft. Sometimes you have to shoot at open water now to hit your target 5 seconds later.
4.5: This can often be negated by aiming at the waterline on the very front of the enemy ship. This will usually make your shots hit their engine room and bring them to a full stop, or slow them down enough for your shots to hit their mag and blow them up.
5: Friendly fire is real, you can kill your own people. Do not shoot torpedos at enemy vessels that happen to be engaging friendlys opposite of you. Crossfire hurts. Hell, you can shoot down friendly aircraft with unlucky artillery blasts, you can dive bomb the plane you are flying by running into your bomb as it falls, I once had my own B-17 crew take out an entire group of my own torpedo bombers.
6: Use binoculars for everything you can, all the time, always. Just use them. They help. Seriously, use them. The things you see through called binoculars. These things you can see through, they can zoom, use them. Do it. If you don't, you have no reason to complain about missing your shots.


Upon reading the reviews, I realized that so many people dislike the game for BS reasons.

"The controls are awkward!"
That's easy to fix by hitting esc and changing your controls.

"The battles feel uneven in single player!"
They are, as they are meant to be. Do you really want a game where you *Always* have an unfair advantage?

"The graphics suck"
Keep in mind the scale of the game and its age, not to mention the price you are getting it at.

"I can't tell when my guns are reloading!"
Yes, you can. If the little green dots aren't green, either that gun is reloading, damaged, or they don't have line of sight. Yes, line of sight is a real thing, it's a real issue. Guns on the back of your ship can't shoot targets in front of you. Get sideways.

"I can't fly!"
The flight controls aren't arcade. Try to use your rudder rather than constantly banking.

"I can't shoot down enemy aircraft!"
In air to air combat: Try to attack from above. Theres a little circle to shoot at, shoot at that, not the aircraft itself.
On surface craft: There are range limitations, be sure to target them, be sure to only shoot at them when they are entering range.

That being said, the negative reviews have some good points. The story is short, the gameplay is dated, the engine is old, mulitplayer no longer has a legit existance and so on. Still, it's $7 unbundled when not on sale, and an amazing game for its price and age.

I did not expect very much when I purchased this game. This game was a pleasant surprise. Although the genre is described
as action, the requirements for success are sufficient to classify Battlestations Midway as action/strategy. The ability to control
virtually every ship and aircraft in each scenario provides a variety of means to achieve the objectives. At the same time you
can control all of the action and strategy with the use of the tactical map. You have plenty of options. In addition to the
campaign, that begins with Pearl Harbor and concludes with the last two scenarios at Midway, the ship challenge, plane
challenge, and the submarine challenge will certainly test your skills as they are fairly difficult. I highly recommend this game.

This game should have a remastered version

Very interesting game for a great price. Nice mix of strategy and combat simulation. If you thought the campaign was easy try the several challenges. They are really hard. This is one of the few games in which I replayed the missions over and over again to fulfill all the secondary and hidden objectives.

As a huge Naval Autist I find that I love this game, but... I do tweak out at some of the Historical inaccuracy
>Some of the Ship classes are wrong
>Shokaku and Zuikaku are both Shokaku Class Carriers not Soryu Class carriers
>USS Pennsylvania is a Pennsylvania class battleship not a New York Class battleship
>HMS Warspite is a Queen Elizabeth II class battleship not a King George V class battleship
>Zuhio is a Zuhio Class carrier not an Akagi class Carrier
>The Number on the USS Lexington's super structure is CV-60 which would designate her as the USS Saratoga of the Forrestal class Super carriers. What it should be is CV-2 for the USS Lexington of the Lexington class carriers.
If you are not an uber autist like me, you will absolutely love this game like I do.

Where the game is lacking the charm with refinement of the details, it wins it back with the overall complexity of the game process, making you believe what you're really get into US Pacific fleet operations... Even closer than the participants themselves - due to all the variety of battle functions, aspects of interactions between all kinds of ships, planes and other units.

War never changes, you know. We may agree on the point it is disgusting, and brings all kinds of bad things (especially if you've witnessed some of them closely). But, on the other end, wars usually tends to remain the main shows for the whole life of the people who was there. Nothing comes close enough in reflecting this, neither the books, nor the films about it... But complex war games such as Battlestations - now, that's a huge step to get the feeling of the gross events your grand and grand-grand parents (could probably) saw with their own eyes. Next step closer will be addition of smells and constant feeling of fear for your life, and one more - real bombardment of your neighbourhood with artillery and strategic aviation. Which is too extreme, I assume.

So! So far we don't use hardware with the simulated outcomes of the real presence, with smells, pain, bleeding and starvation effects - games like Battlestations are as close as we can get.

Sure, the thing is dated, unpolished and all that. The battle formations, with the need to plan the warfare, moving various "units", sometimes even carriers into or out of enemy lines, issuing orders in the real time and control many vessels by yourself - all that can be Really Frustrating. I, personally, very much dislike of the realization of air combats and overall planes control in the game - and that is one of the two most needed aspects! But, again, if you'll get used to it - the overall complexity of the operations will change your look at the things. At least, if you weren't in the actual service, and see WW2 mostly from the barrel of the gun point of view (like Battlefront, CoD and other franchises we all know about).

How do I mark it? Well, it's gonna be 6.5/10, but with the regard for exclusive gameplay which you'll not get even from modern titles like War Thunder or World of Warships. The thing is - you gotta be ready to be multitasked and seld-collected in the one. And you gonna need some (maybe plenty) of time to master it. Without any casual "motivating" stuff like achievements etc.

Fun game, especially for WWII buffs. Has action, sim and RTS elements, but not a true sim. A definite buy when on sale (like now). But issues with framerate and smoothness on massively overkill hardware for this game (1070+6700k). But I also know how to fix it! There is a file in the install folder called "testapp.exe" which apparently is a fixed version of the game executable! Once the game is installed, rename "Battlestationsmidway.exe" to "Battlestationsmidway.exe.bak" ... Then make a copy of "testapp.exe" and rename that copy "Battlestationsmidway.exe" Viola! A fully working Battlestations Midway that runs smoothly with no stutter! Thank me later.

---{Graphics}---
☐ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
✓ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Will do
☐ Bad
☐ Awful
☐ Paint.exe

---{Gameplay}---
☐ Try not to get addicted
☐ Very good
✓ Good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Ehh
☐ Bad
☐ Just don't

---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
✓ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape

---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
✓ Teens
✓ Adults
☐ Everyone

---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Minimum
✓ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press a bunch of buttons
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
✓ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Not so easy
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{Story}---
☐ Doesn't have
☐ Something isn't nothing I guess
☐ Not great
✓ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ Will make you cry or smile a lot

---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of tea
☐ Short
✓ Average
☐ Long
☐ Depends on you
☐ Endless

---{Price}---
☐ Just buy it
☐ Worth the price
✓ Wait for sale
☐ Maybe if you have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ Don't throw money into a trash can

---{Bugs}---
✓ Never had any
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Few bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ Ruining the game
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{Multiplayer Mode}---
☐ Does not even exist
✓ No players
☐ Only few lobbies
☐ Available lobbies everytime you wish
☐ Waiting for a place in lobbies for 5 years

This game is well worth the $1.74 on sale. You can use Evolve to play multiplayer with friends. I highly recommend it. The submarine battles are awesome, and so is being able to blow the crap out of your friends with a battleship!

A very fun game! ship and sub handling are great, aircraft... acceptable, fun is 11/10! cheap, fun, (mostly) realistic, definately worth your money. get it. (cheat: make a profile called Henry Walker . you unlock everything)