World War II games have always had a rich and successful history on the PC, whether it is a fast shooting FPS or a RTS. However, naval and flight sims have always stayed rather low-key, selling themselves to the same group of people year and year. Maybe it’s because they have a proud tradition of real simulation when the rest of us are twitching fingers waiting for something to explode. Perhaps… but I think the real reason is because these people are the only people willing to invest time to figure out these WWII sim games.

Case in point: Destroyer Command. I thought the box must be joking when it said “WWII naval sim”… I mean, how exciting could that be? I was hoping we could cruise around in a boat and blow stuff up. So thinking this I jumped right into the game, without touching the manual. This was a giant, huge mistake. I found the game to be the most boring rubbish ever, and even my hasty attempt to click the mouse every possible place didn’t result in much more action then seeing a square move. Sickened by this lack of action I stopped the game and tried something else. Coming back to with a rational mind, I actually found there was a ‘manual’ or ‘instructions for the game’ included, which most real gamers don’t use very often. Here you will be sickened to the core and quit if you don’t touch the manual. Hopping onto the training missions really helped show me around, even if the game never does achieve a “hardcore action” sort of feeling. Destroyer Command is a sim through and through I suppose.

From the moment you turn the game on… you’ll be immersed. Although the game offers a very thorough set of training missions, nothing can quite prepare you for starting your first real mission or campaign. That’s because Destroyer Command relies heavily on multitasking. After all, you are commanding the entire Destroyer, every single aspect of it. This means you’ll need to learn the hotkeys to instantly fly through the radio room and get the incoming transmission, the helm to read your bearing and then tell the men to go full speed ahead with a rudder angle of your choosing, then head off to the weapons menus to begin planning for war. This is just for a single naval craft, there are many times you’ll be in charge of whole fleets and have to organize that too as well as watch for hidden enemy craft on radar. See how this game gets you seriously stressed? Quite simply although I like a strict multitasking schedule in real life, games are all about relaxing and Destroyer Command pushes too fast to be very enjoyable for me. Sim nuts must go crazy with all this stuff, although a even more realistic option might be signing up for real Navy duties. I guess then you wouldn’t get to fight Nazis though.

Speaking of that, the real meat in Destroyer Command is the Campaign mode, where several theatres are available for conquering. This is all set during World War II, so you have your Atlantic combat with German U-Boats, the Pacific Theatre against the Japanese and the Mediterranean against a mixture of German and Italian ships. Just in case the name of the game is fooling you, you actually control a lot more then just a single Destroyer. There are many types, all with confusing names and special characteristics, like the Clemson, Sims and the Farragut (which I’ve actually heard of!). Although I’m not a big enough Naval nut to know the difference between them in real life, in the game they all have different cornering speeds, top speeds, armor thickness etc. Anyways, in the Campaign mode you take control of these Destroyers (sometimes solo, sometimes in a fleet) and go kick some enemy butt. Until you run aground and die by accident… which is what happened originally. After you actually figure it out though, then the sea battles begin and you can even go up to the Observation Deck and watch your deadly war being waged. It’s quite satisfying. Whether these moments of chaos and destruction at sea are worth you digging into a giant system of menus and commands is something only you’d know. For some people, multitasking and satisfaction of running a tight ship are a joy in their own… other people will most definitely want action to go with their radar.

The graphics for Destroyer are by and large unimpressive. Since this is a sim game you’ll spend most of your time wallowing through maps and 3D interior views of the ship where you control everything from compass to radar. This is not the stuff graphic gems are made of. When you go out to the Observation Deck the situation gets a little better. You can see cities far off in the distance, and the incoming or surround battle cruisers all just “doing their thing”. The water however looks very flat (it’s one basic ‘water texture’ repeated over and over) and rather un-animated, given how really dynamic water is. Even PC games of late have been pulling fancy water physics, so this should be an included thing from now on. The models of the ships are very accurate in a model sense, but lack the sort of graphical detail that makes the ship seem anywhere close to real. The texturing is a flat gray, no rust or anything like that… so like I said, it’s average. The game still runs pretty nice but it most definitely is not very pretty… although not especially ugly either. It’s just decidedly average.

The sound is limited to the sounds of the seas and the voices of the crew. The crewmen yell all the commands that make you feel like you’re on a ship… I never got tired of “Full speed ahead!” or “Fire the torpedo!” The crew voices alone make me smile, even if the eerie calm just cries for a bombastic score.

The replay value here could go on forever if you are caught by the game’s pull. The campaigns are long and difficult, there are three of them to complete. There are many, many individual missions and the ability to start your own. All of these have various goals like the missions you’d find in Campaign, only not linked to each other. You can select all the variables you want to tweak, so you know it’s good. After that there’s still multiplayer… although since I didn’t ever become the expert on Destroyer I had my head repeatedly handed to me by those veterans who patrol the Destroyer Command Online waters. This is recommended only after you build up extremely good knowledge and tactics in Campaign and the individual missions, unless you want to get hurt.

On the whole, the gameplay was too intense for me at times, other times (battle!) it seemed excellent. It’s really a game that was made specifically for a niche of gamers I’m probably not in. That niche might not care about the average graphics if it has realistic naval combat (you better believe it!) and tons of replay value (also a positive). So the real question is to ask yourself whether you are a war sim fan. If the answer is yes, go buy this. If not, stay away. It’s that simple.