This is yet another treat for all war game lovers and virtual bombers. Battlestations: Midway offers a totally new approach to air, sea and underwater combat, accurately reflecting the atmosphere and situation in the Pacific in 1942.

In the single-player campaign, you play the role of Henry Walker, a Navy recruit who shows up at Pearl Harbour just in time for the Japanese attack in December, 1941. From there, your skills as a commander are put to the test in historical battles such as the Battle of the Coral Sea and, eventually, the Battle of Midway. Between battles, you’ll see cutscenes intended to develop a story about Henry Walker’s rise through the ranks to eventually become the captain of the massive aircraft carrier called, USS Yorktown.

There are 11 missions in the single-player campaign, and although some of those missions can easily take the better part of an hour to complete, you can easily finish the campaign in four or five hours. There are 10 extra challenge missions focusing on specific type of units from both the Japan and US forces, but the challenge missions aren’t as exciting as the larger story battles. Despite these bonus missions and the inclusion of a very good online multiplayer game, it’s disappointing that the single-player campaign is so short. Although all the battles in the game are sea battles, there’s enough variety in the missions and the units at your disposal to provide a unique experience each time you play.

You will be moving boats, subs, and planes all over the map in order to win a battle. The controls for this are near perfect and the gameplay is quite fun. The rest of your time will be spent directly controlling your units, which is every bit as fun as commanding them from afar. At any time, you can take control of any of your units and do the dirty work yourself. You can captain a sub as it stalks an enemy cruiser, take to the skies for an intense dogfight, man the anti-aircraft guns on the deck of a battleship, manage the operations of an airfield or shipyard, and more, all in a single battle. You can repair the ships by assigning crewmen to focus on repairing leaks in the hull.

At the end of the day, the graphics and sound and gameplay make you feel that you are really in the battlefield or rather at sea witnessing a battle. This game strikes a balance between action and strategy and that’s what makes Battlestations:Midway such fun.

Minimum system requirements: Minimum configuration (640X480, detail reduced), OS: Windows XP Home, Pro, 64bit edition, Windows Vista, Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 1800+, RAM: 512 MB, Video card: nVidia GeForce4 series (not including MX cards) or Radeon 9000 (1.1 pixelshader compatible), Sound card: DirectX 9 compatible, Recommended configuration, (Upto 1280X960, all features on), OS: Windows XP Home, Pro, 64bit edition, Windows Vista, Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.5Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 2400+, RAM: 1 GB, Video card: nVidia 6800 Series or Radeon X800 (2.0 pixelshader compatible)