PC User Reviews

The most accurate simulation of modern air and naval warfare command and planning. This is not a videogame. Don't expect beautiful 3D graphics or cinematics, just a very hard war game to master... the best one indeed.

I am a BIG fan of "FLEET COMMAND" . I was excited when I first saw this program. I was bummed when I saw the $79 price, a little too much as games go. I am sourly disapointed that I paid $23, I am going to attempt a refund as soon as I am done typing this. This game just does not capture the thrill that "FLEET COMMAND" (F.C.)gave . There is no unit view, that was something else in F.C. when you actually saw the harpoon drill into the side of the Chinese missle boat that had been evading sensors. I game is one of the reasons I think that demos should be made. I dont alot of money and when I spend money on a game that is half done or overpriced or NOT READY FOR REALSE AT ALL! I just want to knock the thieves out that jilted me. I only played this game for 11 min. I got ripped off the last time I bought a program through Steam. They said I had it too long . Sometimes it takes me a little longher than 11min. to determine **** is going to cut the ****, this one only took 11min. I do not want this game. this game normally costs$79 ? you dont do not even get the whole ball of wax! they expct you to buy all the senarios! I cant beleive that! WTF!

This game has potential but **** at current state. Most **** part is air missions. What's good is that for example you can see you aircraft cranking automaticly after taking bwr missile shot and not continue fly toward enemy like in old harpoon games and there's also plenty of good other improvements in realism. BAD This game is supposed to be tactic simulator about combined air/naval operation but in current state of game that's not. Worst thing is mission editor where you cannot set TOT. Mission editor has also other flaws but this is worst thing. If you put strike mission on target with AA and SEAD escorts dont expect airfield launching escorts first in sky. No they came in to target area 10 mins after your last strike aircarft is shot down only to provide SAR cap to shot down pilots. Strike aircarft don't slow down while flying toward pre-ip and escorts don't speed up to make strike cohesive. Now try imagine that you got multiple flights on strike on airfield. 1 pre sead, 1. f-sweep, 1 CAS, 2 strikes(runway+hangars) with 2 sead escorts and 2 aa escorts 1 elect. warfare. Only way to get cohesive strike on this game currently is to set all flights on area patrol with tanker in vicinity of target and micromanage flights from there or change their mission in air from patrol -> strike+others. I'll think that game is still far away from being tactical simulator about modern battles cause of it mission editor and lack of TOT in it. Funniest part of game is it tutorial mission briefings where previosly mentioned strike with multiple flights targeted on airfield is explained. Strike planes should all arrive to target at same time and time over target area including all strike aircrafts should be less than 2 mins. This is very realistic goal and easy to accomplish. Only thing that you need to do is change game. For example in Falcon BMS it's very easy plan that strike with multiple flights and watch AI plane's do their job. And game is flight simulator not tactical operation simulator. I'm waiting for better mission editor to this game and while I'm waiting it I cannot recommend this to anyone.

Pros: unique gameplay, incredibly rich database and the ability to create and play very complex scenarios. The AI is really good, and the dice roll system is a nice way to implement randomness in such a complex simulation. Cons: while the core sim is playable, the game is poorly optimised and frequently struggle to maintain a decent simulation rate, even on high-end PCs. The user interface, while efficient when understood, takes an awfully long time to get used to.

This game isn't finished or poorly designed. Friendly AI is terrible at any strikes that require care. That wouldn't be so bad if you were given the tools to plan your strikes in detail. The game demands you micromanage to be efficient because of bad AI, but does not give you the proper tools to do it. Until this is fixed, you'll just enjoy the game a little while until you realize you can't choose routes for low level strikes in and out of enemy territory. It simulates stand off strikes with long range missles, outside of any threat, just fine. Everything in this game crys loudly for the tools it somehow lacks. Kind of pathetic really. At full price i would avoid it, i am fine though with having bought it during the summer sale, but only with the understanding it'll be eventually fixed.... for a price probably.

It's not a game. It's just a scripted database that runs very poorly. There is no way it is worth the eighty dollar asking price. This is a total ripoff.

Very bad performance even on my high end computer, It does not matter what I do. The game runs very slowly and stops every so often. The UI is not so good.

I will preface the following with the fact that I have just started messing with this sim and there may be things I have not quite figured out or missed in the cursory reading of the manual and tutorials I have viewed. That being said I really wanted to like this game and it had been on my wish list for quite a while. From the onset it looked to combine the best of the Harpoon and Janes Fleet Command series while adding a touch of depth and realism both those simulations lacked. My overall experience in just the few hours I have been trying to wrap my head around the interface is it just the opposite. It seems to be lacking in some crucial areas. For a game that requires one to meticulously plot out every waypoint for an air asset (lest you be condemned to micromanage and entire air war) it is quite frustrating that I cannot group aircraft and load mission sets without getting them airborne first. Basically, in a sim attempting this scope of realism I should have the ability to input an entire Op-Order broken into an individual Frag Order for each unit before they even leave the ground. Beyond that the friendly AI is absolutely stupid without the aforementioned micromanagement and the ability to adjust them on the fly is cumbersome, especially if you have multiple aircraft converging on hostile airspace. The editors claim an intuitive GUI and I hate to say that it cannot be further from the truth. A miss-click here or a fat finger there and something you have spent the last several minutes or even hours trying organize and execute takes a horrible turn for the worst. I again attribute this to the unintuitive interface and the stupid AI. To be quite honest, the designers could take a page from Falcon 4.0s real-time dynamic campaign map as the ability to edit strike packages, target sets and mission loadouts was actually quite intuitive and in many ways had the same meticulous attention to detail and threat modeling Command wishes to challenge the player with. I have yet to mess with the naval component though I am concerned I will encounter many of the frustrations I am experiencing with the air assets. I am hoping that this review is pre-mature and most of my gripes are coming from unfamiliarity as I see a lot of potential in this program and am excited to see if the developers will continue to improve on this platform but as of right now it just seems cumbersome and unpolished.

I found this game amazingly complicated with little to no assistance from the tutorial. I've played all the Janes simulations from the 90's with no problems as well as Harpoon. I was over my head right off the start.

This over-priced piece of software is misplaced in the games category here on Steam. If you would put about 100 variables in an Excel sheet and make them interact with each other, you would get the same slow performing abomination as this. Horrible to say, I find no joy in having spent so much on something that was so distasteful, like a culinary expert accidentally stumbling upon a fast-food restaurant where they spit on your fries and burger. I thought that within this software, I would have the ability to customize everything - including the creation of my own vehicles, this alas cannot be done. The most unfortunate thing is that I bought this game before the steam refunds were introduced, as I would gladly receive my money back for a product I used for 0.6 hours in total. I might alter this review after having met success with support regarding my experience.

First, I purchased this game from Matrix. I realize that my review will not count toward Command's overall rating. Steam might think that makes me a fan somehow, but not at all. Is it a good game? The bottom line is NO. It's painful to play. Others might have you believe it's complicated and difficult. It's not at all--although looking at a database table or spreadsheet might seem disorienting at first. This product, however, is simply and poorly designed. I personally don't care about the windows interface or freely available NASA map (with ugly NATO icons), but simple player tasks are difficult/awkward and the responsiveness overall is choppy. Even simple map panning is awkward. The devs clearly bring the intricacies of the database to the forefront at the expensive of usability and realism. How could realism suffer in such a "hardcore" game? Because it is solely focused on equipment and technology (their beloved database/OOB), so the realism (and fun) of how strategy, operational art, and tactics synchronize is totally missing from the game. The front end of the game provides no realistic (or intuitive) simulation of the needed tools and controls. The "mission editor" is about as close as they get, but even that comes off poorly considering other games. Want to fight a modern Korean War in a theater-level air/sea campaign? You can't. Want to implement your own Silent Hawk helicopter into a special ops raid scenario? No. You can't touch the locked database without making an approved, licensed, paid, DLC product for them. Add to that, every single unit in the game acts with the same level of morale, surprise, training, competence, leadership, etc. The devs focus entirely on a tech database which works exclusively to model equipment traits via connected tables. If 2 Greek F-16 Falcons go up against 2 Turkish F-16 Falcons, the outcome is a roll of the dice. Want to setup waypoints/steerpoint for your aircraft with timing, altitude and posture settings. How about an ATO with packages and supporting flights? There is nothing like that is in this game. You can only set a reference point(s) on the ground for a unit to move to or to define an area -- in the same way you can in any simple rts. That's nowhere near professional quality planning and control for a sophisticated wargame. The game actually plays like a really bad rts game; that has terrible mouse and keyboard commands. At this point, rts player control is ubiquitous. The devs could have at least followed the best practices already established by those folks. Despite a basic 25-year old windows interface, you can't remap a single hotkey. They think they know best for you. What's the real deal with this game? As you are fighting the game's controls instead of focused on your opponent, you can be confident that the jumbled icons on the map are meticulously replicating minuscule radar band calculations for you. To be blunt, I see a group of Harpoon modders who focus almost exclusively on milking the old Harpoon game's database with their changes. Meanwhile, they lock their database version down so that someone else can't do the same thing they did -- without working licensed/paid content through them. Their Inferno and LIVE products are proof of this strategy. Yes, you can hobble together a scenario, but only given strict areas of control and extremely limited scope... a single battle with no external influencers. When asked by a new player just a few days ago (on the Matrix forum) about modding, Sunburn (listed as a dev) responded with one line only, "Will you pay for this?" Interesting and telling response from a group of Harpoon hackers. For $80 you should expect a lot more from a GAME you plan to play, particularly one that released beta tester created scenarios as paid content. Moments after I purchased the game, I made the mistake of pressing the Campaign button at the top of the opening menu screen. I was greeted with an advertisement to buy some more content. My verbal response to that would violate Steam's terms. I think these guys are a lot better at business development than game development.

Boring, clumsy, difficult to read screens. Graphics virtually non-existant. Sounds are weak and very minimal. I was fooled by the seemingly virtual voice overs that seem to add some excitement to the game. They don't exist to my knowldedge. Huge learning curve which one would expect in a modern high tech sim. I spent hours reading the tutorials, manuals, watch some videos etc. and it's still can be daunting trying to learn how to deal with all the tech and weapons platforms etc. Extremely boring combat as you simply wait as missiles approach your ships, while your fly towards the enemy. After an exchange of missile hits, etc, and even with a few ships on the screen (which you never see other than a bland icon) you have to read through a bunch of text to see what happened and even then it's difficult to figure out exactly what's going on. You never really "care" for the ships in your fleet or the virtual sailors on board. This game is lacking something magical that brings it all together. I really wanted to love this game but I am afraid it's just not going to happen. In fact, I have come to really dislike it. I have installed this and uninstalled a few times because I was hoping somehow I would come to enjoy it. I am afraid it's coming off for good now.

If you enjoy gaming without sound or play own music while gaming, fine. When I pay this much for a game I expect more than a redo of Harpoon 3. Realism by the numbers (accuracy) was given priority. The game is just not fun.

I purchased this game and played just one Tutorial. At first I thought it was going to be an interesting and fun game, similar to Jane's Fleet Command I played in the early 2000's, but it was a well in depth game and for the price tag I decided to get a refund as it would only be sitting in my game library. It is not like Jane's Fleet Command at all :-(

Doesn't work graphically on my computer and steam won't process a refund........................... .............................Steam **** as usual.

I REALLY hate to give this game a negative review. I bought it full price about a year ago, I consistently go back and play it as you can see from my hours. The reason I go back to it is because I have not found another game like this out there. The amount of content and sheer size of this game is massive. Why the negative review? The reason "I consistently go back and play it" and don't continuosly play it is because it is EXTREMELY UNSTABLE and I can only take crashing so much before I move back to my other stable games. I literally crash every time I play in one way or another. The tech support is great and the community is very helpful and loyal, but that only goes so far and doesn't fix all the bugs. Editing missions is almost impossible if you want to work at a modern pace, if you try to work efficiently you will have problems. Playing the missions/campaigns at even 5x speed will cause issues as well. I will continue to go back and play especially when there are updates to see if things change and would love nothing more than to change my review to a huge thumbs up, but for now it's a no go for me. I wrote this review right after spending the day making a mission and I just had to stop and write this. Frustrating because it could be so good. Not worth the money in it's current state. I think it's time to move on to a new game engine and a new Command title. It doesn't seem to be made to run on modern PCs. My PC Specs: Windows 10 x64 i7 4790K 16GB 2400mhz RAM 480GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD (2) EVGA Nvidia GTX970 SSCs

Game would not accept my serial number (as printed on DVD) to complete installation. Contacted Matrix Games and support reply was "contact support through Amazon". So I did and got no response! Game DVD is best used as a coaster. :(

The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Ugly The Good 1. Many of the game functions and commands are compatible and synchronized with Harpoon3. H3 veterans will easily grasp the basic game concepts and controls and be playing within an hour. 2. A physics package makes most units observe the Laws of Physics. This means there are no more instantaneous turns, acceleration, dives, or missiles fired 'over-the-shoulder' at a pursuer. 3. Sensor detection and weapons resolution reports are very detailed resolution through comprehensive messages that show the various modifiers and variables. Control over these messages is excellent so that they can be disabled if they turn out to be too much information. 4. A Scenario Editor allows for scenario writing meaning that players are not limited to the 39 official scenarios included with the game. 5. Third-party modifications to images, sounds, and icons are easy to add. 6. Color-coded messages make for ease of reference by the player. Hostile action reports appear in Red, while other administrative reports appear in white, green, or yellow. The Bad 7. No multiple player capability whatsoever exists. The only opponent is the AI, which can be easily tricked once it is understood. 8. The Event Engine produces strange results from teleportation (yes, you there is "teleportation" in this wargame about naval warfare) of units instead of the more recognized deployment from aircraft or ships. 9. The crude Formation Editor feature means that the solitary map is unnecessarily cluttered with icons and symbols. Confusion is quick to ensue when aircraft assigned to protect the carrier group cannot easily be distinguished from those assigned to expeditionary missions. Most other games have independent window displays to control formations so that units can function as organized groups. The Downright Ugly 10. No database editing capability exists. The database is locked. The current items, equipment, and systems can be shuffled, re-arranged, or re-combined, but nothing new can be added nor can the performance of any current system be modified. Players are forced to accept false perceptions of reality when the majority of aircraft are arbitrarily and artificially limited to 950 knots on afterburner even though these same aircraft exceed 1200 knots in real life. 11. The UI is severely overloaded, cluttered, and user-unfriendly. The dependence upon a single map to display all the units and functions means that the number of icons and other data displayed is extreme. Coupled with the inability to turn off some information, this means that the player is easily overwhelmed by the data, much of which he probably did not want to see in the first place. 12. Direct player control is difficult to exercise due primarily to the single map display. The inability to differentiate between units at a distance or high altitude means that the user must constantly zoom in and out to locate units for his orders and targets. This awkwardness triples the time and effort necessary for the most simple and basic orders and truly makes the game a chore to play instead of a pleasure. In Conclusion This game is theoretically functional, but could easily have used twelve additional months for optimization and polish. As it currently stands, MNO is a hodge-podge of ideas haphazardly thrown together. It is good that MNO replicates many functions from NWAC and Harpoon3. It is too bad that many bad ones are also duplicated while helpful ones were forgotten. Features such as the Formation Editor and Event Engine are prime examples of good ideas for functions that were poorly implemented and badly integrated. The awkwardness of the UI makes the game a chore to play instead of a pleasure. A thorough re-examination of the overall design phase might be prudent, especially considering how some features generally considered "standard" within the naval wargame genre are conspicuously missing. This is version 1.05 and, hopefully, improvements will come in the form of game Patches instead of "paid patches" (a.k.a. download content or DLC). Should this game be meaningfully patched in an expeditious manner, an update of this review is certainly possible. Modern Naval Ops Review (Steam v1.05) www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=LFQ2nitU5ow

I really love this game, but I forgot why I stopped playing it in the first place. It crashes ALL THE TIME. I can't recommend it, unfortunately, until it's stable. Really disappointing coming from a hardcore war sim player (Harpoon, Fleet Command, Dangerous Waters, etc)

I didn't realize this was Beta?! When i purchased as well I didnt realize it. Anyhow, i digress. If this is a Beta then i must not be so critical. I typically stay away from playing them as I dont like dealing with growing pains.

The AI is as bad as Fallout 4's. After a few hours the game really shows what an awful mess it really wants to be and does not disappoint. 1/10 Too easy and boring!

Despite great reviews on YouTube, the game is glitchy and crashes. It does come with a very nice 141 page book, and I prefer buying the disk like this over downloads. Its fun when it works.

CMANO is one of the greatest simulation games out there for those who are interested in military hardware. From it's seemingly endless and detailed military database to it's many scenarios that cover a period from 1945-2020 this is a military armchair generals wet dream. The game mechanics include a serious sensor/weapon gameplay in which an intricate amount of calculations are made akin to an actual military grade combat simulator. You want to see what happens when X forces attack Y area that has Z units? You will get a pretty accurate picture of how it would end up with this game. In addition the editor seems to be a endless toolbox where you can exercise your dream military engagements and even create campaigns with some effort. There is a great deal of tools like triggers, events, scores, weather, time that help you create whatever scenario you dreamt of. The editor is where most of my time went to I tested hundreds of military hardwares in different situations. To give a few examples the S400 vs F35 or DF21D vs Gerald Ford Class Carrier. Both tests ended up having very interesting results. There are some obvious downsides namely being the UI and Performance but those are not distruptive to the experience and have been improving ever since it's release with 9 big patches released so far. Kudos to the developer team for their continuous support of the product. As of the writing of this review I think the game has gotten very smooth on these two weak points. In addition to those points I have to say out that the visual aspects of the game are weak since it features a world map but it maintains the modern Command and Control Center operator feel which is crucial. If you think the price curve is too high for CMANO go get Command: Northern Inferno it's a smaller scale CMANO that features a 1975 Cold War turning hot campaign that will teach you how to play and will give you good a taste of the game mechanics. In Conclusion I give this game 9/10.

Very deficient AI. Commands approach to AI is to create very scripted scenarios that provide very little in the way of replayability. Without heavy use of scripting the scenarios as well the AI is dumb as a rock. This is the only flaw I find with the game but a big one. I doubt the designers will do anything to correct this as they are really hyping the fact that they have recently released a set of tools to allow even more scripting by potential scenario designers.

This game is big fun. It has lots of planes, ships, submarines and even my favorite satellite in it. I can make big battles, small battles and everything I want. It even has nuclear weapons so I can hit those Russians and Chicoms. This is great fun. I think this game is going to be great hit. I can not find review on PC Gamer but I hope they will review it there. Thank you.

Ive been playing this genre of game a LONG time. Started out with old paper wargames. Then found computer Harpoon, played various representations of that for many years until it was obvious that Harpoon was at a dead end. Then I found Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations. For me this was an instant buy. First reason is the Database. If it has floated, flown, or fought in a battle since the end of World War II, chances are very good it is in this sim. Youll have your pick from a lowly patrol boat all the way up to entire US Navy battle fleets complete with air wings. Every country in the world is represented on a google earth like map. Now this sim is NOT a 3D representation of the world, units are represented by symbols, and not in a 3D environment. Some people may cry foul and say in this day and age, everything should be like a FPS. But command strives for a look of a map a naval commander would look at in real life. Second reason is the Scenario Editor. When i first played this sim, this is where i headed to first. It is VERY easy to create two sides, plop down some units for both, and just turn the sim on and play. I consider it the ultimate sandbox. You can play to your hearts content and add as many units as you wish. There is a learning curve with this sim. There are a LOT of buttons and options and different windows to manage your forces. Is this too much? I think not, there are several good tutorials that introduce you to the mechanics of the sim, and MANY good resources online via YouTube and elsewhere to find out how things work. A sim of this magnitude requires complexity. The Command online community is by far the most helpful and friendly bunch o have come across in some time. It is not uncommon to see the developers of the game in a chat room and have them respond to bugs and have a patch out within a few days. I have seen them put out several patches in a day just to make sure a **** bug is finally quashed. They are veterans of the whole naval warfare simulator community and have years of experience in their chosen craft. This game has received Game of the Year awards given to it by several sites such as War Is Boring, Grogheads, Usenet, Eurogamer, and elsewhere. IF modern air naval combat is interesting to you, THIS is the simulator to buy.

Command Modern Air Naval Operations has been by far my most-played game since I purchased it. With an extremely broad range of scenario possibilities (from peacetime duties to World War III), and with a scenario editor that is one of the best I've seen in any game, it is definitely worth its price. The scenario editor is extremely easy to use. A fully functional and enjoyable scenario can be made in an hour or less, and playtested every step of the way.

Command simply is the World Champion of its category and it's getting better at every update, the devs are driven and the community is helpful and while extremely knowledgeable remain civil. Command can be used to simulate so many situation, from the living ORBAT to "Just Nuke It" chill out moment that, thanks to its simple yet powerful scenario editor and a prolific community, replayability is not even a concern. As for the pricetag, just see it as a lifetime subscription to fun and awe and let's just be honest, such unique entertainsim deserve it.

There is absoultely nothing better than this game out there and the support is outstanding. If you're looking for a modern warfare simulation, it's just perfect. Two thumbs up!

Command: Modern Air / Naval Operations is the gold standard for simulators of the genre. Since purchasing it in 2013 I've sunk more hours then I would like to think about into browsing the vast database, creating scenarios from the ground up, and playing the dozens and dozens of scenarios available from the community. The best place to start is the database. You can spend hours browsing through the various weapons, ships, aircraft, and facilities used by almost every nation in the world. For an enhanced experience you can download an image pack from the forums or you can add your own image (or images). Everything from the Iconic Nimitz Class to the humble fishing trawler are covered in great detail. There are two 'play' modes in Command. The normal play mode is used for playing through completed scenarios. The game really shines in the editor mode though. You can zoom into any spot on the globe and start placing units, giving AI unit orders, and play out any scenario of your choice from Coast Guard patrol missions to global nuclear war. As the player you have unlimited options at your disposal. The learning curve for this game can be daunting at first. However it's actually much quicker to master then some reviews have said. You pick it up quickly and ca do it as you play. If you have any questions there are a variety of resources that can help you out. The forums are always a good place to start. What really pushes this sim into the 10/10 territory are the updates and the fantastic community. Command at release was a better game than any others on the market, Command at its current version at the time of this review (1.07) will rule this genre for years to come. The updates will keep coming as well. The sim improves daily. Like any game, there will be bugs. You can measure the game on the bugs or the developers response and handling of those bugs. Command does this better then any other game I've played, ever. Bugs are addressed quickly by the team leading to a great community experience. If you're on the fence about this sim, do yourself a favor and buy it. You will wonder how you ever manged without it.

NOT A FUN GAME EXPERIENCE. Unfortunately one can easily 'sum-up' the basic failure and downfall of CMANO. 1. The learning curve is ungodly to say the least. 2. The software was obviously consulted with and or directed by former hardcore military 'brass-heads' with little regard to developing a game that actually produces entertainment, income and assuring MATRIX revenue. CMANO should have been developed in two or three different playable versions (novice and expert) thus opening a much bigger market share. CMANO as it stands today seems to appeal to less than about 1% of the PC military simulation player market due to its inherent difficulty to play and the awkwardness of its interface and more. What companies need to understand is that war simulation games have to be fun, entertaining and not agonizing. Eye candy like graphics need also to be present and incorporated in a big way. I do not think that these overdue improvements will happen nor be available as 'PATCHES' based on the demonstrated intransigence of the game developers. The game has naturally been praised by many so-called military experts but surely Matrix cannot survive on just these 'experts' alone. Case in point: I just noticed at TARGET where 'Dangerous Waters' by Sonalysts games was on sale for $4.99. A simulation 2-disk game also hard to absorb and to play thus never making the cut or producing revenue. I am still today stewing over the almost 400 page Sonalysts full combat manual. But then again I am just a simple GAMER (Armchair Admiral) with no real military background or a degree in Naval Warfare like the many thousands of my kind. But we do have the cash to play and would love to see a major improvement over the venerable HARPOON and late Fleet Command.

Command is going to be the new standard for hardcore military sim. Since the first version it took operational air and naval warfare simulation very close to the sims used by the military and way beyond what was available in the markets. Since then, the develpers have improved the sim exponentianly, making it better and better, theur responsiveness to their customers is ALREADY a new standar in the trade. Of course, there are drawbacks: one the operational enviroment is hard and complex to master in real life, and in the SIM... there is no cheat codes, and to shortcuts to get the job done... To make it short, the sim is the best ever game I´ve installed in my PC´s, and each day is getting better and better... but is not a game for the weaks... the learning curve could be step and yoe should have some ideas about modern weaponry....

************************** I come from the cardboard and "pencil and paper" (our way to play miniatures) wargames, so I was very curious about experiencing this genre on my PC. "Harpoon" (which I have in the cardboard version) appeared to be promising, but the Ultimate Edition was a broken mess. For there reasons I had high expectations for "Command". I forked $80 for this game when it came out, only to find on my PC another broken mess. "Command" tries to do too much while, at the same time, even the most basic commands are buried under an incomprehensible user interface. You can determine rules of engagement, EMCON, when to use or not to use weapons; and, most importantly, the overall mission. Then you discover that throttle and altitude are under another menu. And that general route is under another one. In the tutorial you have two squadrons of F-14 whose job is to clear the skies over the objective. So you program them to maintain standoff and blast the enemy they find ***in a specific direction***. You launch your squadrons, and they start to dance "The Blue Danube" by Strauss, without, of course, firing a single missile. Amazing. I devoted maybe 15 hours to "Command", because you just ***feel*** that there is a game under the mess When I started playing computer "Harpoon", for example, I found that the possibility to open different windows to follow different situation at the same time was really cool. So I expected to find the same opportunity here. No joy: you have to follow everything from the same window: even WWIII. The reasons of this horrible design choice are beyond me. Speaking about the map itself, the developers decided to go for a 3D world similar to Google Earth. Cool! Until you realise how jerky is moving around, it doesn't matter how powerful your rig is. I have an i7 with a GeForce GTX980 and an SSD, and it is like playing on an old Pentium 100Mhz. Sometimes I, literally, cannot find a crisis point because the map window, instead of moving smoothly, jumps around. The propaganda says that "on a powerful computer the game will scream". The developers recommend the use of a powerful computer. In my opinion, this requirement is only useful to hide the numerous technical problems. Given the problems with sound too, I'm not even more sure that "Command"'s developers used DirectX, which would be amazing. To close the book, add the random crash, sometimes when you are launching the game! The mess of the UI joined to these technical problems leads to further confusion. Your aircrafts, instead of screaming on the objective and launch their, lets say, anti-radar missiles, again improvise a representation of "Terpsichore" in the Darcey Bussel version, while the SAMs choose "Sarabande" by Haendel (the music from "Barry Lyndon") and wipe out the "Prima Ballerina" wannabes from the sky. Why the anti-radar missiles didn't fire? It's an error I made? Something buried in the UI? A bug? Mystery. I once stumbled into a debate where some bozos tried to explain that "you have to learn it by yourself, by doing research!" and that for this reason "Command" offers the opportunity to be a "learning experience". I do find this not only offensive, but also an excuse to cover for the horrific manual (to the developer's merit, each incremental patch is bringing it to what it should have been in the first place). Anyway, If you don't know who Darcey Bussel is, you can use my review as a "learning" experience... "Command" brings to my mind a strange image: a child who is unable to come into world from the mother's womb because of a series of complications: you see the head, or maybe the feet, but the poor creature is stuck. It is like seeing something which could be good stuck halfway between a potentially interesting game and a turkey because the developers could do/knew only part of their job. Will a better mid-wife arrive to finish the job? We can only hope, but I have bad feeling about the whole situation. Right now my best hope is that another group of developers will learn from the mistakes of this one and finally produce a good modern warfare naval game.

This is very heavily based on Harpoon 2/3. I still have the original Harpoon 2 command cards, and all the keys in-game are even bound to the same values. I've played a great deal of Harpoon 2 and 3, and this is Harpoon 2/3 with nothing removed, but with a lot of extra detail added. The multi-monitor support is very nice too. In a nutshell, it's Harpoon 2/3, with a graphical and UI over-haul, better performance, improved sensor modelling, mobile ground units, and with rates of turn and acceleration added for aircraft and vessels. This game is the ultimate in its genre, truly fantastic.