By: Slava 'Aknar' Mitroshkov
Date: 2005-09-09
Title: Salvo!
Genre: Strategy
Developer: SprueGames
Publisher: Shrapnel Games
Before computers and metal hulls, before guided missiles and aircraft carriers, naval combat consisted mostly of blood and cannon-powder. Chop up a small forest, put it together with the skill of a few good shipwrights, add masts, rigging, cannon and you've got yourself a ship! A crew of brave sailors unafraid of the sight of blood (for there would be much of that on the decks) and you've got yourself a battle-worthy vessel. Armadas of these craft would clash, victories would decide the future of nations, and afterwards the brave sailor would retire to a tarvern to drink his fill! Salvo! wants to give the players a taste of this tale, but numerous short-comings prevent it from being a good game.
The game package comes with a 49 page manual that does the job of informing you how to play the game, though you have to meander through information presented to you in no particular fashion. It properly explains the controls of the game, which are straight forward, and the player will be sinking enemy armadas in no time. The interface, while well through-out and easy to use, suffers from the general clunkiness of the engine. Even on a system that can run Half Life 2 on the best possible settings, anything but the smallest battle makes the controls choppy and radically abuses the framerate. This would be understandable, except that the graphics are not at all modern.
The Spanish fleet sails into battle.
Salvo!'s graphics, in the tradition of strategy games, are not particulary modern. The ships are a pixelated mess, the ocean is a repetition of the same couple of tiles over and over, and it's generally unimpressive. While the graphics are not vital to a turn-based strategy game, it is hard to understand how Salvo's engine manages to be primitive in terms of graphics and still be choppy with more than four ships in a scenario. The poor graphics, and the mis-behaving game engine, are a problem.
On the bright side, the game sometimes manages to make turn-based Age of Sail combat exciting. Ship control is simple, the player chooses where his ship will proceed by clicking on one of the arrows showing the prospective path of the ship. Gunnery targets can be designated by you, but if you choose not to order the guns to fire during your turn, the AI will still fire them for you when you hit 'end turn.' Interestingly enough, there is no way to disable this AI-gunnery assistance, but that does not hinder the gameplay. Many different types of ships are represented, from (relatively) tiny 20-gun boats, to dangerous frigates, up to devastating 120-gun ships-of-the-line. Each has different characteristics, and after a battle in which a ship is heavily damaged, you have the option to salvage some of its materials and most of its crew by turning it into a fireship. Fireships were meant to be floating torches, in theory setting the enemy ships on fire. They mostly added to the chaos of battle and contributed nothing else to the engagement, much like they do in Salvo!
The AI, when turned up to full 'intelligence' is no slouch and is liable to turn your ships into timbers if you're not careful. There are two settings for the AI: one gives direct bonuses to you or the AI , and the second setting actually makes the AI act in a more intelligent fashion. I always enjoy a good computerized opponent, and in large fleet battles it is not uncommon to find that half your fleet has been devastated by the AI and your remaining hulks are desperately trying to avoid meeting their watery grave. Salvo's good AI is definitely a plus, but like most AI it has its moments of stupidity where the enemy ships will present themselves to you for a good raking shot. Overall, the AI in Salvo! is good.
The sea is filled with floating hulks.
Friendly AI can also be tapped to take control of your fleet. In engagements where there are 15+ ships on each side, controlling each one could be a chore. Salvo's 'squadron' system allows you to put your ships into several squadrons and let them be led by the AI, or yourself. One example is simply placing all your ships into one squadron led by your own flagship, and then giving your squadron the order of 'Follow.' Your ships will form the standard 'Line of Battle' (that dominated Age of Sail tactics) and follow your Flag ship around. Once you engage the enemy battle line and several ships are reduced to floating timbers, you can call for a 'close engage' order and watch your ships break off into a general chaotic engagement with boarding and counter-boarding taking places as the cannonballs fly.
The sound of Salvo! is not any better than the graphics. The same sound for the ocean loops again and again, asking to be turned off. Cannon shots are believable, but quickly get repetitive. In the options menu, there are several steps you can take to suit Salvo! to your own specific needs. The lethality of cannonshots can be turned up (a couple settings higher, and raking a ship once or twice at close range is all it takes). There are options to make the smoke more or less opaque, to increase or reduce viewing distance, standard stuff.
There are 24 branching campaigns in Salvo! that offer you the choice to non-linearly devastate the enemy's navy. Up to 14 individual scenarios per campaign are advertised on the box, and you have the ability to take captured enemy ships along with you on your next engagement. There's a bit of a fleet management factor, with you choosing which ships to discard and salvage some materials from, which to fix and crew, and which ones get to receive an increase in crew quality. The campaigns range from challenging to 'how'd the enemy fleet sink this fast?' but there's plenty of both. There are also training scenarios, even without which it would be pretty simple to understand how to start ravaging the enemy fleets after a battle or two.
Pirates in the fog!
There is no multiplayer, which is a major blow because this game seems perfectly suited to multiplayer mayhem. The art-and-science of positioning your ship to devastate the enemy with a broadside but not be hit yourself is a natural for multiplayer. Even worse, there is no campaign or scenario generator, editor, or any way to make new ones. Once you've exhausted the scenarios and campaigns that the game provides, that's it. This lack of replayability or ability to create new content is perhaps Salvo's biggest problem, though there are others.
The camera system is atrocious. Turning the camera around without selecting the ships is awkward, the ship you moved the previous turn does not come selected by default, and the camera does its best to defy you at every turn. Very frustrating.
There are numerous problems with Salvo!, particularly the lack of multiplayer or scenario generator. This is mollified somewhat by the ample branching campaigns, but don't look for boundless replayability here. For those who like turn-based strategy and Age of Sail naval combat, this game will likely provide a healthy portion of entertainment. However, there are other, and better, games made in the Age of Sail genre to take up your time.
Review specs:
A7N8X Motherboard
2100+ XP CPU
1 Gig of 3200 RAM
9800 Pro 128MB Video Card