Pearl Harbor: Defend the Fleet Critic Reviews

For the hour or so at a time that Pearl Harbor retains our interest, it is an immersive experience packed with just enough war-movie realism to achieve a sense of drama. Which means this would have made a fun shareware game or a much lower-priced bargain bin favorite.

The length of the game is roughly equal to the time spent viewing the film, plus or minus the time needed to get popcorn.

This may be amusing to a casual gamer, or even a beginner. Replay value is negative zero.

These sort of games are reviewer-proof. They are targeted at a very specific market and are deliberately made as simple as possible.

Fleet isn't much more than a graphically sophisticated shooting gallery. There's no strategy, no multiplayer, and very little reason to keep playing after the third or fouth level.

It's an old-school shoot-'em-up that would have been right at home in a 1980s arcade. Unfortunately, it would have been the dusty game in the corner that no one played...Games like "Defender" and "Missile Command" offered more challenging and exciting gameplay along the same lines 20 years ago. Toss this one in the harbor.

After I got bored playing this game for all of 30 minutes I took the CD outside in my backyard -- it makes for one fine Frisbee, not to mention the hours of fun my black lab and I had.

There's no motivation for the player to keep going, no tension that builds, no interest in the new weapons, no in-depth strategies, in fact it's just a generally vacuous experience.