World of Warships - the yank ships aren't so bad

I've been a little reinvigorated to play world of warships in the last few days. A bit like World of Tanks, I think it is one of those games where it's easy to come and go, try playing a certain line of ships/tanks, get bored with them, then give it a rest and come back to it later to try a different line.

Whether it's battleships, destroyers, heavy tanks or artillery, both games offer a large selection of hardware to run out in. As I've said previously though, the lack of context bothers me in the long run, but as a free-to-play game they are wonderfully designed with, what I think is a fantastic pay model; you really don't have to put money into the game, but if you enjoy a particular part or fancy having a little more, then there are good products that allow you to get more from the game, and most importantly, do not give you an edge in the actual gameplay!

With World of Tanks I think I put in between £15-£20, but considering how much I played the game I consider this to be an absolute steal! I take my hat off to Wargaming.net, their game design and payment model is excellent.

So, getting back to the title, a couple of weeks back I expressed my view that I didn't enjoy the American ships so much, I felt they were all a little generic and lacked character. I think, in the last couple of weeks, having got in touch with an old friend, who to my surprised was a world of warships addict, he's brought the joy of brawling in an American battleship or charging around in my Clemson class destroyer. The latter ship, my Clemson destroyer, has been a joy to play with and made me consider that destroyer play may be my strongest ship class in the game!

I've been meaning to write a review of World of Warships, so maybe I'll run down some points now.

The good stuff:

• It's free. Honestly, you can play this game quite satisfactorily without parting with a penny! I haven't yet, but I am tempted, because there are some cool premium ships and I may want some extra port slots at some point, but I don't feel pressured and that's the important thing.
• The graphics are good; excellent, I think. The sea looks realistic and the swells and white horses are very convincing. The ships are immaculately designed in fine detail.
• The gameplay, just like with World of Tanks, is easily accessible. The controls are accessible and yet there always seems to be a nuance to be discovered to enhance your gameplay. It makes me feel good to play and learn, without ever making me like a nublet.
• The damage model is impressive. Just like in World of Tanks, the armour, hard points and ships components are represented so well and make accuracy and manoeuvre so important.
• The variety in gameplay is surprisingly good. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, battleships and cruisers all offer very different gameplay experiences, which cross over seamlessly to create a very team focussed battle experience; each player needs to play their role and sometimes do something heroic to win the day!

The bad stuff:

• Lack of context. Random nationalities and ships all bundled together to find another team of randomly assorted ships and nations. There's a certain amount of balancing with ship levels and types, but it's just a play ground for people to enjoy early 20th century warships; not for those who want to re-enact historical engagement or semi-realistic situations.
• Just like with World of Tanks, but less so, the ship level/tier system can be annoying. Some ships, which were known to be very good can end up being in a tier where they're up against ships of a later period and therefore not able to really show their impressive status in the history of warships; similar to how I described the Tiger tank in World of Tanks. However, World of Tanks brings players in almost at the invention of the tank and ends with near modern day tanks, which means the 10 tier systems jumps quite significantly as tanks get better. This speed of development is not as high in shipping; a tier 3 battleship, one of the very early dreadnaughts, will be able to out gun any cruiser, maybe even the very top tier ones, and a tier 10 battleship getting hit by torpedoes from a tier 2 or 3 destroyer is not going to appreciate it.
• Repetition. It's not the kind of game that'll grab me for long periods. I'm fairly certain I'll enjoy it for a long time yet, but in short stints and preferably with friends. Solo play gets tedious fairly quickly.

I'm not going to go into much more as it's a free-to-play game, there's no story to really go into, the game is what it is; if you like early 20th century warships, you'll probably enjoy dabbling in this game. It looks good and runs fairly well even on quite slow systems.

I've probably missed some things, I've written this a bit spontaneously, but I have been thinking about it for a while.