| Fighting Steel
by Eric "Snacko" Marlow |
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I have been following Fighting Steel by SSI/Divide by Zero for some time. Last year at the 1998 E3 I got my first up-close-and-personal look at what was poised to be an incredible naval simulation. More than a year has past and the simulation has undergone many substantial changes. How does the final release fair? Let's take a look. On the Box Experience I must say that SSI has maximized the experience of opening the box. Not only was I rewarded with a very nice printed glue-bound manual and the game CD with a jewel case, I also received copies of the DOS-based Silent Hunter and Steel Panthers II Brigade Command. Nice touch. Fighting Steel's website begins with the bold statement, "The most graphically stunning and realistic simulation of naval surface combat ever created." Other statements such as "Combining the depth of a detailed simulation and the tactical challenges of the finest war game…" and "Detailed combat and maneuvering systems accurately simulate naval surface combat..." clearly set the tone by which Fighting Steel should be measured. SSI is plainly targeting more of a hard-core crowd with Fighting Steel. Although Fighting Steel could be targeted at the soft to middle core gamer, you really aren't subjected to the "secret" code words the marketing departments always seems to plug-in to address these needs: "easy to use", "intuitive", and "scalable game play." Ok, so how well does it stand up to these claims? Manual Given my disappointments with the quality of manuals of recently reviewed sims, I was pleasantly surprised to find a well-written, substantial game play guide included in the box. The 125 page manual includes sections on the Quick Start Tutorial, a Game Overview, Starting the Game, Playing the Game, Preference Settings, Ship Viewer, Campaign Game, Winning the Game, Creating New Scenarios, What's Behind the Game System, Staff Briefing (Tactics), Designers Notes, and Reference. In general I was quite pleased with this manual, as it is what I have come to expect from any developer who offers a military simulation that espouses realism and content. |
Training Fighting Steel includes two tutorial missions that give you an introductory flavor of naval combat. The training missions are to be learned by executing the mission while reading along with the textual dialog in the manual. I found the training missions to be adequate to the task, but just barely. I would have appreciated some kind of voice-over narration, as trying to execute a real-time mission on-screen while jumping back to the manual was challenging at best.
Single Missions Initially the player may opt to start their exposure to Fighting Steel by jumping into a single historical engagement. Fighting Steel includes twelve scenarios from the period 1939-1942 set in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres of operations. Every scenario was carefully researched to give you a sense of battle size, time of day, crew quality and starting position. The manual includes a full description of each engagement on the Background and Historical Scenarios page. To keep things fresh, Fighting Steel also incorporates what is called a Battle Generator. The generator can produce a random battle based on criteria that is specified up-front. Criteria include items such as nationality, start time, historical/fantasy, battle size, battle type, formation setup, air/sea control, visibility, time, location, and crew quality. While not maintaining historic realism, the battles generated can achieve historic authenticity. Go to Page Two: Campaign
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