Controls (cont.)

You move between the various control positions (captain, gunner, 3rd person view etc.) by using the numeric keys, while the Enter key will switch you between the tactical and action screens. In each type of screen, your mouse will behave a bit differently and when you are new to the game, you may be surprised that even though the view of the action is almost the same, you can no longer do the same thing with a click of the mouse as you previously could.

The thing with press demos is that you don't get a manual to tell you how to do most of the stuff that needs doing - and even the walk-throughs cannot tell you everything that needs to be known and understood. I'm quite certain that if I had had a manual, learning the controls would have taken a lot less time. The best option, naturally, is for the final game to offer a tutorial mode to teach you the basic controls, which it probably will.

Graphics

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea comes in two flavours: DX9 and DX10. The latter of these versions is naturally the one to offer the best graphics experience, but the downside is that you will have to be running Vista to experience it. Also, you will need a graphics card that delivers a serious punch to experience the best that there is. With my Vista rig with ATI™ Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT crippled with a mere 256MB internal memory, I was unfortunately unable to play the game with high graphics settings (playing at 1 fps when the action is hot really takes the fun out of gaming). But, even what I was able to see showed that the game offers some seriously good graphics and effects. Sometimes, you almost believe that you are looking at a photograph of a real thing rather than a game.

The ships are modelled beautifully and although I'm pretty sure that the PT Boats are modelled to look a bit sleeker than they really did during the WWII, they seem to be very much historically accurate. The only shame in such warfare is that most of the action and battle takes place at long distances, so you don't really get to see all the eye-candy that there is, unless you ignore the control of the battle for a moment and take a closer camera view of a sinking enemy ship (or your own, as the case may be). These sights are truly worth taking a look at, though.

Unique experience

Overall, I must say that, when finished, PT Boats: Knights of the Sea will definitely offer a unique experience to anyone who is even remotely interested in naval battles. The exceptionally beautiful graphics, intense atmosphere of looming death in the form of torpedoes and heavy weapons fire as well as the roar of the engines of your PT Boat as you swerve away from an enemy fleet will come together to transfer you back to the deadly world of World War II.

Since the game differs so much from most other games on the market, we can only hope that the innovation this title seems to be offering will find the gamers. It will certainly be worth it.