"Enemy battleship sunk!": Warship Gunner 2 Review

Overall Score: 4.98/5

A

Roaming around in a big vehicle of destruction is nothing new for video games, rather it's quite the opposite, it's a staple in video games. Though where Warship Gunner 2 differs from other vehicular combat games, is that instead of some tank or ice cream truck, or a laser equipped jet, or a giant mecha, things are taken to a larger scale and you get a full sized warship. A full sized warship that you can customize from the hull up, with a huge selection of parts in nearly any combination you want. This game is pure shoot 'em up 3D arcade action. This game is just pure fun.


Gameplay: 6

Gameplay is the most important thing of any game, and here the gameplay really shines. Controlling your ship while attacking targets from every direction is fluid and intuitive. Every command you need is literally there at your finger tips, no need for any weird input commands.

• L2 & R2 - steer your ship left and right. 
• L1 - enters Engagement Mode where your weapons go into auto-fire and attack target individual enemies. 
• R1 - Scope mode, zooms into your scope for long range attacks. 
• Triangle and Square - cycles though your ship's weapons. 
• Circle - Auto-steering mode where your ship automatically travels where your gunsight is oriented. 
• X -fires your selected weapons.
• D-Pad Up and Down - controls your speed from Reverse, Idle, Cruising Speed, Flank Speed. 
• D-Pad Left and Right - steers your ship. 
• Left Stick - moves your gunsight and rotates the camera. There is a large circle on the HUD that doubles as a close range radar, when the gunsight hits the edge the camera rotates. Within the circle, icons for enemy ships, subs, structures and even schools of fish (depending on optional equipment) appear relative your position.
• Right Stick - Tilting the stick up will zoom into binocular mode, while tilting it back down will zoom you out.
• R3 - will snap the camera to point directly forward or directly behind. 

On the surface the game is a 3D action game on with your ship on a 2D plane. You're armed with cannons, guided missiles, torpedos, and even optical weapons and huge Wave Guns that can take an entire fleet out with one shot, inspired by Space Battleship Yamato's  Wave Motion Gun.

The controls change slightly underwater. Instead of Engagement Mode L1 causes your sub to dive, while R1 under water will bring you back to the surface, though on the surface it functions the same as before, activating the scope. While underwater, most weapons aside from torpedoes, VLS missile and some energy weapons will be unavailable.

There is a limit to how deep you can go, you can go deep enough that enemy weapons can't reach you, but on the other hand you're unable to fire your own. This is useful mainly for escaping. You can also rise just below the surface to periscope depth and have access to the binoculars. Also underwater you control your ship in a full 3D environment.

The this all comes together to give the player a very fluid control scheme for their maritime fist of rage. Traveling in one direction and delivering full broadsides from your battleship, or a Macross-style Itano Circus from your guided missiles destroyer in another direction is as easy as walking, and not something that you'd need to give a second though to.

You have a wide array of ship types, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, battleship-carrier hybrids, submarines, and two special classes, frigates, and superships.

Destroyers - Destroyers are light, fast and agile. They're armed with a variety of weapons ranging from guns, to rockets, to guided missiles and torpedoes, to depth charges and even laser weaponry much later in the game. Destroyers also have the most slots for optional equipment such as counter measures, AEGIS systems that allow for multi-lock, equipment to enable auto-fire,etc.

Cruisers -  Cruisers are medium scale warships and will serve as your workhorse for many of the earlier levels. They can be equipped with the same weaponry as the Destroyers but can also carry guns of larger caliber, dual purpose "hi-elevation guns", and heavier energy weapons. Cruisers can also be equipped with launch facilities for seaplanes, helicopters and VTOL jets. While they are larger than destroyers and can take more punishment, Cruisers also have less equipment slots (though more than battlships). Cruisers become useful again later when you unlock later parts that grant speed and defense boosts and unlock the more powerful weapons like the rapid firing, high damage output, Advanced Gun Systems and the energy weapons like Plasma Guns.

Battleships -  Battleships are your heavy combatants. They can be armed with large caliber guns, missiles, tactical nukes, rail guns and heavy laser weaponry. They have the highest weight limit and the most Hit Points (HP), and can also equip aircraft facilities to operate the same aircraft as Cruisers. However this all comes at the cost of Battleships having the least amount of equipment slots. A well rounded battleship, with heavy offense, heavy air-defense and respectable armor will always be useful.

Aircraft Carriers - By and large, as far as a surface combatant goes, Aircraft Carriers are essentially heavier Cruisers. The weapons are largely limited to Cruiser-type weaponry, though they are unable to carry torpedoes and depth charges. However as the name says they are able to carry all manner of aircraft, ranging from scouts (fly beyond the range of the ship's radar and sonar), interceptors (attack other planes), fighters (attack other ships and ground targets), bombers attacks other ships and ground targets, but less effective against ships), attack helicopters (essentially the same as fighters) and support helicopters (fly around the map and retrieve pick-ups like heath and ammo replenishment). Carriers also have the same number of equipment slots as Cruisers. While in real life, Western carriers largely rely on their air wing for offense and defense, here you can mount guns and guided missiles and build yourself a "guided-missile carrier" out of a Nimitz-class hull with the same design philosophy as the Soviet/Russian Navy in regards to carriers.

Battleship-Carrier - AKA the "battle-carrier", the battle-carrier is a battleship-carrier hybrid. It can mount all the weaponry and armor of a battleship, but also is equipped with a flight deck for a small air-wing. Unlike Battleships, Battle-carriers are not limited to VTOL aircraft, however they have smaller air-wings than true carriers, though the high tier hulls have air-wings almost as large as lower tier Carrier hulls. They also come equipped with only the same number of slots as Battleships. 

Submarine -  In the game Submarines essentially function as a submersible destroyer. They're light and reasonably fast and agile (depending on engines and equipment) and can equip most of the same weapons as Destroyers. Underwater the player has full 3D control over the sub and can control the sub's turn and pitch. 

Frigates - Frigates are essentially something between a destroyer and a battleship. They're as tough a battleships, have similar weigh limit to lower tier Battleship hulls, and can be armed with the same weaponry as destroyers. Frigates are a special hull type that is not unlocked until much later in the game. Once unlocked the Destroyer will fall completely out of use, given that the Frigate is basically a Destroyer on steroids, leaving no real reason to keep using them once the Frigate hull is unlocked. 

Superships - Superships come in several forms, there are dual hulled versions of Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships, there's a giant Battlecarrier that carries and air wing as large as a conventional carrier's, there also a supercarrier with the HP and armor of a battleship and a huge airwing. Other superships are hulls based on bosses, such as the Drillship hull, a Battleship that mounts a huge bow mounted drill and circular saws on the side of the hull. Then there are the joke hulls, like the Shark Sub where in-game your sub looks like a Great White Shark. 



While there's a wide variety of ship types and existing classes you can use to completely wreck your enemy, you can also design your warships from the hull up. Various ship parts ranging from hulls, weapons, structures, aircraft and electronic parts can be researched and development, and after completing development. Which brings us to the other focus on the game, designing and customizing your own ship. 

You can design your ship from the hull up, completely from scratch. You can take the Yamato-class's hull and put the Iowa-class's superstructures on it, and remove the rear turret and replace it with a cluster of Vertical Launch System anti-ship missiles. Or you can take a cruiser hull, build it for speed then equip it with an AEGIS for multi-lock and mount a single large Guided Plasma Gun, and wipe out entire fleets in just a few blasts. Or you could take a carrier and equip it with tactical nuclear missiles and fire that off into a a fleet then launch your aircraft to pick off the survivors, just be careful to fire the missile first as you can down your own planes. 

Or you can load a pre-designed ship, and go with either something that actually exists or take an existing ship like the WWII era Nelson-class and do your own modernization to it, that it never had in real life. Other pre-made designs are fictional classes and concept classes that were never built like the Montana-class battleship. They range from some WWI classes such as the British Renown-class battlecruiser to modern classes such as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's top of the line Atago-class guided missile destroyer. There are so many combinations that you can do, though you can't make an air ship, so sky is literally the limit. Though naturally, not having to adhere to any design limitations, be it budgetary or laws of physics, if you know what you're doing any custom ship you come up with will be more powerful than the real world designs.

The development trees for hulls and structures are divided into four, American, British, Japanese and German-classes. Differences are largely cosmetic though there are some slight differences in stats and some hulls are wider or longer than others. Though it isn't only limited to those four nations, other nations such as Italy, France and Russia have parts under one country or another. 

Given all the different parts to equip, you can even take an older hull, and with the right load outs keep it competitive into the later levels. This is especially true with the Battleships. 

On one hand I want to say it's too bad that the game lacks a multiplayer, given that the PS2's network adapter has long been out by the time this game came out. But on the other hand, there would have to be some MAJOR tweaks to the multiplayer to make the game balanced. One way Koei could have done this though is limit equipment to only weapons that exist in the real world, or to only WWI and WWII equipment, for competetive modes, and let them use what they want in co-op modes.


Stability: 4.9
Having come out in the era before patching, companies only had once chance to get a game right. Here Koei did largely that. The game doesn't have many (if at all) stability issues. I've played both the PS2 disk version and the digital re-release on the PS3, and no crashes, failed saves, failed loading, or freezings. At most there would be some sound issue where the ambient background music wouldn't kick in until the battle themes come on when you engage the enemy. It's a very minor thing, but enough to be noticeable. 


Plot: 5

The story takes place in an alternate 1930's centered around the Kingdom of Wilkia, a colony founded by Germanic people (Germans or Scandinavians) in what is the real world Russian Far East. WWI had happened and the colony, having risen up and joined the Allies won it's independence, as the Kingdom of Wilkia.

 In the 1930's the country's royal government was overthrown by factions within the military lead by Grand Admiral Karl Weisenberger and the Kingdom was reorganized into the Empire of Wilkia ("for a safe and secure society"). The Empire goes on to invade other countries, triggering a world war. However the war was planned long in advanced and a series of superweapon warships making use of a mysterious black technology (later revealed to be derived from an alien vessel discovered in the North Pole) were developed behind the royal government's back. Using these superweapons, the Empire went on a rampage across the globe, annexing Wilkia's ally Japan and other unsuspecting countries as well as drawing in smaller countries under it's umbrella and pressed their militaries in service under the Empire's banner. 

However the coup wasn't a complete success, King Vilk and his Royal Guards were able to escape the coup and flee the country, and established a government-in-exile based in London. It is with the Royal Guards where the game's protagonist, Captain Schultz serves. 

The plot follows Captain Schultz and his crew in their fight to reclaim their homeland. At the start the government-in-exile has to prove itself as a viable force to be taken seriously. After several major victories, it gains the legitimacy it needs and begins to rally together all the various countries under threat of invasion from the Empire, as well as (in the case of Germany and France) nations strong-armed into non-aggression pacts with one-sided terms and chafing under the Empire's heel, and soldiers still willing to fight the Empire after their nations capitulated (such as Italy). After rallying enough forces to the anti-Empire cause, the Allies take the war to the Empire. First driving them out of Europe, then using the US as a launching point to drive the Empire back across the Pacific to it's home turf. Things finally come to a reckoning where the Royal Guards alone launch an invasion of the Empire, breaking though the Empire's last line of defense and storming the coastal capital city to take the head of Grand Admiral Weisenberger and topple his totalitarian military dictatorship. 

While the general plot remains the same, there are three paths the player can take, each with a different character as Schultz's Executive Officer. One is longtime friend Lieutenant Werner, who serves in the Royal Guard alongside Schultz and were trained by the same instructor. Instructor Tsukuba, a veteran of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Schultz's instructor while in officer training. Dr. Braun, a German engineer whom Schultz and crew save from pursuing Imperials. Each path has levels unique to them, as well as a plots specific to each character. Additionally, there's also a separate, "true ending" that you don't get until the second play though.

The plot is moved along though text narrative, mission briefings and post mission dialog. Unfortunately there is no voice narrative, though that isn't so much a big deal, just seems like something is missing given that by the time this game came out, spoken dialog in video games was pretty much the norm. Though in the Japanese version, the in-game voice that announces "enemy ship sunk" and other dialog changes with each different XO character, in the US version it's a single person providing that voice. Despite these short comings though, the multi-path, multi-ending plot more than makes up for it. This combined with the sheer number of parts to unlock/R&D result in a game with great replay value. I got this game the day it came out in the US and I didn't play any other game for about 6 months.


Graphics and Visuals: 4

The graphics and the visuals aren't exactly the best the PS2 has to offer. However this is probably due to the fact that the game models every bit of equipment on your ship. If you put something on your ship, it will be modeled and placed on the ship right where you put it. Not only is each part modeled, but they're almost all animated. Gun turrets and missile launchers rotate and elevate, radar arrays are constantly rotating, Despite that, there are still changes in weather from bright and sunny with calm seas and good visibility in the South Pacific, to stormy with rough seas and poor visibility in the North Atlantic.

I've mentioned the eye to detail on your ships, and this eye also extends to your base. A massive mobile dock serves as the player's base. As the player develops more and more of the development tree, the base also expands. Even the dock is animated, you'll see helicopters taking off from helipads, you'll see trucks driving around, cranes rotating and defensive gun turrets moving. The floating dock looks "alive".







Art and Music: 5

The boss designs and the fictional designs are mostly carried over from the first Warship Gunner, Naval Ops: Warship Gunner, though the railguns got a redesign in this game. That said the bosses have their own unique look. The bosses are all huge and their intro is done in a way that makes them look intimidating. Some of the weapons have a funny quirky look to them, like the Cat Beam (the lasers emitted even sound like angry cats), which literally looks like cat loafing on your deck. Or the Crab Laser which looks

exactly like a large metal crab sitting on your deck. Regarding the real world equipment, the hulls and the structures look accurately modeled. When you built the Iowa-class or Yamato-class battleships, you will recognize them right away. People with an interest in naval history, or naval warfare history will appreciate the eye to detail Koei had in modeling the hulls and structures. 

As with the Kessen and Dynasty Warriors games, the soundtrack to Warship Gunner 2 is actually pretty good. There are tracks just for sailing around that are more calm, some of the tracks are more foreboding. Then once you engage the enemy, the tracks change to ones more fast paced and appropriate background music for battle. Boss introductions are accompanied by a track reminiscent of the theme to Jaws. While the first game made use of a few rock tracks, Warship Gunner 2's tracks are mostly orchestrated, with a few having prominent strings.



Final Verdict: If you love arcade shooters, don't pass this up. 

I would easily recommend this game to anyone who loves arcade style shooters were you just blow-up everything in sight. The game is just a real blast to play, and the naval combat setting, sets the game apart from others. Given the huge replay value, even at the full launch price of $50, you would hands down get your money's worth on this game. If you have a working PS2 you can get the original disk from Amazon used for $38.90, or if you have a working PS3 you can download the digital re-release from the PlayStation Store for $9.99. I literally cannot praise this game enough, and it deserves a place in any video game collection.