The single-player game consists mainly of two campaigns, each a linear set of about 20 canned missions. The game is almost entirely playable from this screen. While these work well enough over a LAN, Destroyer Command repeatedly drops out of sync and crashes when played over Ubi Soft's online matching service, ubi.com. You can play deathmatches, cooperative missions against computer-controlled vessels, and even base-capture games. Since real engagements can last hours, the time compression works by selecting the slowest speed chosen by all the players, which lets the boring stretches speed past at whatever pace players choose. There is multiplayer support for destroyer-only games. There isn't even a correction for this in the readme file. ![]() "One of the most exciting features of Destroyer Command is the ability to play cooperatively or head-to-head against other Destroy Command or Silent Hunter II owners," the manual states optimistically. Note that this didn't stop Ubi Soft from advertising this feature on its Web site, on the game box, and in the manual. Considering how long the deeply flawed Silent Hunter II has remained unpatched (five months and counting), this doesn't bode well. As of two weeks after the game's release, there's no support for "interoperation" and no official word on when a patch will be available. What this means is that you can link them together and play multiplayer games in which some players drive subs and some players drive destroyers. ![]() The developers at Ultimation created this sim as a companion to last year's Silent Hunter II, a submarine sim that was supposed to be "interoperational" with Destroyer Command. Since you usually have to get in close to fire torpedoes, using them requires more finesse than simply plugging away with your 5-inch guns. It also means you'll get to use torpedo launchers, which were the real teeth of destroyers in that era. While this might seem like a less glamorous command, it does open the game to antisubmarine warfare, a topic that hasn't been covered in a sim since Novalogic's 1990 game Wolfpack. ![]() But whereas the Great Naval Battles series put you on the bridges of the century's grandest battleships, Destroyer Command relegates you to their little cousins, the destroyer escorts in World War II who kept enemy subs at bay. You command a ship (or ships, in some cases) from either an overhead map view or by jumping around the various stations, where you flip switches, twiddle dials, and look at gauges. Near miss by a kamikaze.ĭestroyer Command is the spiritual heir to all those Great Naval Battle games SSI used to publish. This is the case with Destroyer Command, a painful instance of just how shameless and insulting a computer game company can be with its customers. Sometimes software is released in such a wretched state that the developers may as well just come to your house and kick your dog for $40.
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