KOEI's Warship Gunner series is the odd man out in its line-up, and although the latest game isn't the flashiest game they've released in recent memory, there are a whole lot of improvements to the original formula to bring both old and new fans into the fold. Warship Gunner 2 returns players to the high seas and deep waters of planet Earth as a captain in the fictional Wilkia Royal Navy, who have fallen on hard times as their motherland falls into chaos and a major military leader takes the reigns of the country and declares war on the rebel navy (meaning you), the former king and anyone that gets in their way.

The game sees players engaging in a variety of naval battles against air, sea and land targets. These new missions consist of all kinds of objectives- from destroying targets and taking down hordes of enemies - to knocking out radar and escorting allied fleets through dangerous waters. Players will start out the game learning the ropes like steering, changing weapons, movement, etc. As the training comes to a close all hell breaks loose and players find themselves testing their mettle against an onslaught of large fleets and land targets that want to sink your battleships! The action is fast-paced, arcade style and a lot of fun.

To fans familiar with the series, the mechanics are pretty much simple and unchanged, but the game throws a lot of new goodies under its hood to add lots of replayability and fun. Players still control the engine of the ship by using the cross (up and down) and the right and left arrows (or L1 and R2) to steer. Players can cycle down the weapons system menu using the X button or up using Triangle, while the Circle button allows you to fire the weapon you selected. The weapon system menu is pretty straightforward, letting you select whatever is equipped on your ship including long range guns, machine guns, torpedoes, aircraft, depth charges, etc. To aim these weapons of mass destruction you simply use the left analog stick and to get a zoomed in view simply use the right analog stick. Of course there are plenty of other things you can use in the game, but these are the key elements you'll be fooling around with as you take on air, land and sea targets.

As each mission in this story driven campaign unfolds, you'll get a briefing complete with manga style artwork and visuals pointing out your targets or objectives. Missions include everything from escorting other ships and protecting them to taking out land targets like radar or gun turrets. As the game progresses the situations get stickier and more pressing, with multiple objectives that will keep players on their toes until the very end. Most missions usually have a secondary objective that will further your rank and give you additional funding that you can use to build a ship in the game's ship designer. When the mission is over you receive a score and earn cash and prestige, but if you want to return to specific mission the game lets you access anything you've completed - and the good thing is that you are rewarded for it every time with more funds, rank and sometimes even spare parts or unique technology.

In addition to the usual ships you could control in the first game, Warship Gunner 2 offers a number of new types of ships including Submarines and Frigates. Frigates are like the destroyer class, except they are a lot larger and are capable of dealing with ship-to-air and ship-to-sub combat because they tend to offer more space for weapons platforms and more space for aircraft much like a carrier. Frigates are capable of being equipped with an immense amount of weaponry and systems including torpedoes, machine guns, high end engine parts, and five types of aircraft. Subs allow players a more stealthy approach to combat, allowing you to sneak up on unsuspecting enemy ships and sink them.

One of the most unique components to the gameplay is the ship design. This impressive and deep pretty impressive system lets you tweak just about every aspect of a ship. This includes everything from weapons systems to hull strength to platforms systems that support aircraft to sonar - and all stops in between. There are a vast number of improvements to the ship design component in Warship Gunner 2, but it's relatively the same easy-to-use system players enjoyed in the first game.

Warship Design and Construction portion of the game has gotten a major overhaul. Players can now create designs using over 250 new upgrades including new aircraft and new weapons and seven different vessel types to work off of including American British and Japanese ship designs. Players can also develop technology starting from the World War II era all the way to modern day technology and even hypothetical weaponry like railguns and plasma tech. Really handy when you get into those battles where it seems like the whole universe has decided to take on your meager little naval force.

In the last Warship Gunner game there were five areas that you could monkey around with when designing a ship, but in Warship Gunner 2 there are seven that players can now tweak including ship hull, Automatic Artillery, Missiles, Bridges, Propulsion, Aircraft and Electronics. For players who don't want to get into the complication of conducting R&D and designing a ship from scratch, there's also a new upgrade feature that makes it easy to refit your ship - and there's also an "easy" ship design component that makes the whole process a snap.

While it's pretty obvious that the game offers a whole new storyline and a whole new set of missions, this time out there's a total of 64 with seven bonus missions. The story and the missions progress into three different branches of the storyline depending how you fare in each mission, giving players an extra incentive to reveal all three outcomes by replaying through the game. Once you've cleared the main storyline of the game, you can unlock those bonus missions that offer some additional challenges. Players can also replay every mission they've successfully completed to get additional parts, rank and funding for updating their ships or research and development of new ship components. If you like the game, then there's certainly a lot to play through and when you add the ship design and research components into the mix, then you should have more than enough game to toy around with.

Final Thoughts:

Warship Gunner 2 isn't the prettiest PlayStation 2 game we've ever seen, but it certainly is a unique game experience far removed from KOEI's other series. If you like arcade style combat games against hundreds of enemies at a time, and the ability to design your own ships then Warship Gunner 2 is a worthy edition to your PlayStation 2 library. - James Fudge.