Strategy Gaming Online - Previews : Fighting Steel

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PREVIEWS

Fighting Steel

DEVELOPER : Zero, Inc.
PUBLISHER : SSI
RELEASE DATE : Aug. 1999

Fighting Steel is the much-anticipated WWII naval battle game from SSI and Divide by Zero, Inc. which purports to be "The most graphically stunning and realistic simulation of naval surface combat ever created!" From an early beta, it looks like they are doing their level best to make this happen.

It’s immediately apparent that Fighting Steel is being designed by naval traditionalists. Billy Mitchell would NOT have been welcome in their midst! The emphasis is on gun combat, and the slugfests between the heavy surface units of the Kriegsmarine, United States Navy, the Royal Navy, and the Imperial Japanese Navy. The scope of the game is 1939-1942, after which the dominance of the aircraft carrier made even the most significant battleship a hostage to air cover/support. Neither aircraft nor subs are directly represented – although "air control" is simulated in post-battle calculations (making it more likely that damaged ships will be sunk for calculation of victory points, for example).

DbZ has put some thought into this game. They have made serious efforts to present the player with a realistic level of control available to their role as a task force commander at the tactical level. For example, ships are formed into groups (or divisions) for control purposes. During combat, they can be broken out of divisions, but NOT formed into new ones. I find this eminently realistic. As a battle wears on, damaged ships advise you they are breaking out of the division as damage prevents them from maintaining speed or course. This makes the management of these battles more and more chaotic as your neat 1- or 2-division force is worn into a half-dozen or more fragments that you are trying to direct from everywhere.

Further, with full realism on, the division commander encounters order delay and order confusion (NO, I SAID TURN RIGHT!). This will challenge the mettle of the most hardcore naval enthusiast.

Otherwise, they’ve done a pretty good job of control management. It’s relatively easy to manage several multi-ship divisions (ok, until they start fragmenting, that is!). Basically controls are limited to a set of navigation tools (well designed, by the way) and gun controls (major guns, minor guns, and torpedoes each have a different screen, and can be independently targeted). Very simple, very intuitive.

Despite the level of work that’s gone into the sim behind the game, certainly this first thing anyone will notice is the graphics. FS takes advantage of the power of today’s computers and 3d accelerators and represents the entire battle in 3d. Full motion and zoom is available to the player (although already in the beta the auto-camera controls were excellent). 2d plot views are also of course available, but it’s a rare gamer indeed who won’t enjoy setting courses, then sitting back to watch the show as his or her ships blaze away at the enemy, thunderous broadsides rattling the subwoofer.

Damage is also represented visually, as you can see from the screen shots of the test scenario I worked up. (The USN launched a surprise attack on the RN!). Small fires show as slight smoke, while raging blazes are towering columns of fire, visible for miles. Misses are evident as splashes proportional to the size of the gun. Torpedoes (DD have ‘em, remember) are not shown on the map except to the shooting player as a "theoretical" course plot. As mentioned above, camera control is excellent – with the ability to customize how the camera jumps to different actions and even whether the camera "jumps" or pans from one subject to another.

The ships themselves are well-rendered, as you can see from the shots – I daresay a real naval expert would be able to tell if there are any faults, but a few minutes checking silhouettes with my "Jane’s Fighting Ships of 1945" shows that they have done their homework here. (In fact, a 3d viewer is currently available from http://www.fightingsteel.com which allows you to see, pan around, illuminate, change camo, and even fire the guns right now using the detailed models for the Kriegsmarine.)

Finally, the beta also had an editor that was also very simple to use. Create the sides, the setting (i.e. meeting engagement, convoy protection, etc.) the environment (sea state, light level, duration) and then select ships to populate the various divisions, put them on the map with courses and speed, and voila – a scenario!

Their required system for Fighting Steel is an optimistic P133. Admittedly, beta code is NEVER as optimized as the release version, but with a K6-2 300 MHz and a Voodoo2 8 meg board, I was puttering down around 5 frames per second. I expect these minimums will float up to a realistic level by release date.

Expect Fighting Steel to thunder into your local game store (late) summer 1999.

Previewed by Steve Lieb