P.T.O. IV

"A fine addition to the series, but hardly the finest hour."

Pacific Theater of Operations IV, henceforth to be referred to as PTO IV for the purpose of brevity, is the latest in the World War II strategy series that finds it's roots back in the 16-bit era of the SNES and the Genesis. The game, like it's predecessors, places you in the role of the Chief of Naval Operations for any one of the four world powers at the time, whether that be Germany, Japan, Britain, or the United States. As the person in charge of naval activity, it's your job to build your forces, engage the enemy, and ultimately achieve victory over the opposition.

You'll do this though the use of a myriad of menus that detail everything from fleet organization, resource management, weapon development, to officer deployment. Needless to say, this can appear intimidating to those who aren't accustomed to having such detailed control over the minutia of just about everything. However, there's no reason to fear, because as opposed to previous entries in the series, you have the option to have the computer automatically take care of such things for you while you plot the overall conquest of the seas. In this way, the game accommodates those who would like to boil things down to a handful of important menus as well as those veteran purists of the genre who would find such things as computer automation of even the most minute tasks blasphemous.

In PTO IV, battle is waged on the ocean, which has been cut up into a few dozen points at which the fighting can occur. This replaces the hundreds of bases and posts from previous versions, as well as replacing the free sailing of the seas also found in earlier incarnations. Battles are rendered on a three dimensional map that is designed specific to that area of the world. You can bring up to three fleets with you into battle, with each fleet being constituted of up to sixteen ships. While the fleets can be varied enough to take on different roles, such as aircraft carriers launching air raids, large capital ships battering at foes with their massive cannons, or submarines silently seeking out their prey, in the beginning battle always winds up with the same result, the ships meeting in a jumble of confusion, and the fleet with the larger number of capital ships winning. While, after some practice, it is possible to move fleets in such a manner that doesn't result in a disorganized heap forming in the middle of the map, this does highlight one of the game's glaring weaknesses...

Movement of fleets is now determined by setting waypoints to which you'd like them to travel. Now, this actually may sound like a fairly reasonable idea, however when you account for three fleets filled with over a dozen ships, and factor in the AI that controls ship movement is outright stupid most of the time, movement can become a chore, or at it's worst, completely unmanageable. Fleets will collide with each other and instead of working things out by sailing around each other until the traffic is cleared, ships will just turn around in circles and not really go anywhere. Eventually, experienced players will work out ways to avoid this, however in the beginning, it can amount to a great deal of the frustration players will have with the game. However, after time, a fair amount of enjoyment can be gleaned from managing battles, though, even if you're an experienced strategy master, you just have to endure a not so insignificant learning curve to get there.

As far as the battle environments go, they aren't very impressive. Land masses all have the same bland texturing, and the ocean is always rendered in the same shade of bluish-grey. On the other hand, the ship models, while nothing spectacular, do a respectable job of appearing like their WWII counterparts. Each model of ship is distinctively crafted to appear different, even to other ships of the same classification. The music isn't something that will make you want to listen during your time away from the game, but it's suitable enough to not seem out of place, and it does a good job of just melting into the background once the game's underway. Despite not offering much in the audio/visual department, watching battles actually unfold on screen is something that should be experienced at least once by every strategy gamer who counts him or herself among the devoted.

Ironically, it appears as if KOEI went to great lengths to add the options to simplify PTO IV's gameplay, however even then, it can't hide what, in the depths of it's soul, it truly is... a menu driven strategy game. In doing this, the game will alienate a large portion of the game playing audience. Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not you love strategy games. If you're a devoted fan of Kou Shibusawa, then of course you will want to pick this up. If you're hitting up Google to find out who he is, or just don't care about his legacy of great strategy games, then perhaps your time would be better spent on another game more suitable to your individual tastes. Though for those who were interested in this type of gameplay before playing this one, it's another solid entry in the venerable series. The games strengths do shine through the drawbacks, which definitely makes it a game I can recommend to strategy buffs... just be prepared to take a bit more time with this one than usual to get the gameplay down to a science.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/05