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Good: In-depth strategy

Bad: Sluggish gameplay, Lingo-heavy

Other than the excellent Advance Wars Dual Strike, the Nintendo DS suffers from a draught in the strategy department. It's a shame too, considering the DS' two screens and stylus could easily recreate the feel of a conventional PC strategy game. Enter Steel Horizon from Konami, a turn-based strategy game that captures all the planning and methodology of the genre, but leaves out most of the fun.

The game puts you in charge of a sizeable Allied naval fleet during World War II. It begins like most strategy games, the first few missions are essentially training exercises allowing you to familiarize yourself with the control interface and the many functions of your ships as well as learn the specific rules of engagement.

During missions the combat area is presented as a grid on the bottom screen while a detailed map that represents the field of vision is presented on the top. Each fleet is comprised of up to eight ships, each with their own specific active and passive abilities. Moving your fleet is as simple as pointing to the desired square on the grid or using the D-pad.

When in combat, each member of your fleet is represented on the bottom screen while 3D cinematics track the action on the top screen. During battle your ships will automatically attack the enemy, but you can intervene by ordering them to move or telling them to target a specific ship. It's also the only way to engage ship-specific special attacks, which are invaluable.

Once the training wheels come off the campaign takes a significant jump in difficulty. Enemies begin to come from multiple vantage points and their fleets become much more tactical, utilizing the many abilities of each vessel.

Steel Horizon also makes it a point to emphasize the abilities of your own ships. Some missions emphasize the stealth of your submarines. Others require the use of mine layers to detect and avoid enemy mines. Several missions emphasize to necessity of carriers to capture enemy ports and shipyards.

Still, neither the increase in difficulty nor the reliance on specific ship types feels out of place. The first few missions are easy so the introduction of smarter AI is welcome and while it can get annoying when you have to use the poorly armored carrier ships, underlining a specific ship type doesn't fee out of place either. Both elements further add to the strategy.

While Steel Horizon looks like a solid strategy game on paper, in execution it disappoints across the board.

The touch screen interface is clunky and slow. Issuing commands or cycling through options will make an impatient player (like myself) want to toss the DS across the room like a boomerang after repeated attempts to move a fleet go unanswered.

Combat is equally infuriating for the same reason. While your ships automatically attack there are times when they refuse to target a specific ship or move to your desired location despite repeatedly issuing the command.

On a related note, even if your ships are all following your orders like a good little fleet they can be ripped apart by a fleet of the same ships you completely obliterated one turn earlier. This makes the combat feel like there may be more up to chance than actual strategy.

Rating the graphics is almost inapplicable. The area map could have easily been made for the SNES and the cinematics during battle are sub-Playstation quality. The sound is decent, but not remarkable.

The game is also packed with enough naval terminology to satisfy even the surliest of sea captains. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (I admire Konami's attention to detail), but it can be confusing and might discourage more casual gamers.

Programmers interested in creating a niche game should pay close attention to Steel Horizion. It contains all major elements: A story steeped in obscure history, gameplay mechanics that are an acquired taste and terminology so dense that it almost requires its own dictionary. The result is a game that is so specific you wonder that aspiring for cult status would be wishful thinking.

Graphics: 3.0

Sound: 4.0

Gameplay: 3.0

First Play: 3.5

Last Play: 2.0

Overall: 3.0