If you ask me what my favorite game is, most days I will say "Sid Meier's Pirates," released by Micro-Rose in 1987. Micro-Rose was a software company famous for its simulations, strategy and war games, and sometimes genre-bending endeavors. Its brand has recently been revived, and while most of the games announced lean toward traditional wargames, a hybrid "HighFleet" is also being released.

The scenarios of what to do in "HighFleet" sound fascinating. Negotiate with local warlords for alliances. Deciphering codes. Design a new ship. Fly it in heavy combat, dodge bullets, and launch missiles. HighFleet is also cleverly put together, with a digestive interface that accesses different parts of the game experience through a window on the flagship. Click on the receiver at the top of the "I want to intercept a message" screen to enter the radio interface, then use the mouse wheel to turn the dial and look for signals.

In other words, HighFleet feels like the product of a singular vision, with a consistent style and all systems working in harmony to bring the player into its mindset. Under most circumstances, this is something I would happily recommend as unique and exciting. Just one small problem:

I hate this game.

There is a cliché in game reviews that even if the reviewer doesn't like a game, if it is a game that others seem to like, "it must please fans of the genre." But that is not me. For one thing, there is no such genre. For another, if there is a genre that HighFleet could be pushed into, it would have to be next to my favorite game, Sid Meier's Pirates. So, theoretically, I am a fan of the genre. [Just as High Fleet had a full system, Pirates was loaded with mini-games, which combined to create a storyline in which swashbuckling pirates rocked the deck of a galleon, dueled the wicked Spaniard, or wooed the governor's daughter. These mini-games were fun. With one exception: in the original 1987 version, when you got lost in the Caribbean, you couldn't just pull up the in-game map. You had to use a historical device to determine longitude and latitude, then look at a manual map. It was so bad that it was removed from the version of "Pirates" you have probably seen. [The core problem with High Fleet is that all the mini-games have astrolabe-like obstacles. For example, you learn how to intercept communications in the tutorial, but once you start intercepting communications yourself, you have no idea what that means. There is a whole system for launching stealth attacks, but you have little idea how or even why it is important. This is partly due to the lousy tutorial. But the confusion doesn't stop in the main campaign either. The confusion increases with each new system encountered, and the fantasy of playing as an airship commander does not grow.

Let me explain the key combat. Your fleet has a certain number of small ships, such as frigates and corvettes, which you control during combat. move with WASD, aim with the mouse, and fire with afterburners, missiles, and flares. move with WASD, aim with the mouse, and fire with afterburners, missiles, and flares. missiles, and flares. Multiple enemies may appear on the screen at once, but if they are destroyed or retreat, they are replaced by the next enemy on the list.

The combat looks and feels great. There are nice weather effects like raindrops hitting the viewscreen, wailing music that fits the Russian/West Asian atmosphere of the game, and booming gunfire. Controlling the ship is a constant tug-of-war with gravity, and reload times and ship damage are on the edge of difficult and frustrating. The act of fighting fits the game nicely.

The problem is everything else associated with combat: the connective tissue. There is an overwhelming lack of information about what combat actually means. There is no real answer to the question, "Can I lose my ship?" in HighFleet, until you develop some competence and expertise. Ships have crews that can save them when they lose them and get a marker of how many were saved at the end of the battle, but we don't know what the crews actually do or how they are systematically replenished.

The strategic level dealing with combat is also off-putting; HighFleet teaches you in the tutorial how to send ships away from your fleet to fight, but I lost most of the ships I sent out or didn't know how to recall them. The ships are damaged and can be repaired and customized at the shipyard, but this takes time and money. And then there is the nightmare of landing the ships one by one in a specific docking area to get the slightest repair advantage.

In short, it feels like you have no idea whether any battle went well, well enough, or ended disastrously; HighFleet also has one auto-save that is consistently updated, except for the chance to start the battle over again immediately after the battle The game is run as an iron man game with In other words, after every battle, you have to decide if you need to start over again, without any strategic context.

The act of playing High Fleet is like having a bunch of alarms going off telling you that you are in big trouble, but you have no idea what the alarms are going off for or why. It's like a celebrity on Twitter retweeting a hot take. Suddenly, everything I do is wrong and there is no way to calm anything down. [Because in an experimental game like this, one would expect there to be moments of confusion as one tries to unravel its complexities. But there is another small problem. HighFleet" is difficult, or at least it feels difficult, and more importantly, there is no difficulty setting. It's a simple, vicious cycle of fighting, redoing the fight, getting more and more frustrated, and finding more and more fights to lose. It's an unhelpful, frustrating, and stressful cycle.

You may have the patience to puzzle through these systems. You may be drawn in by the clever interface and engaging style, and you may be inspired to figure out the meaning of each part. Perhaps you are a twin-stick jockey and the combat makes perfect sense to you. There are many elements that would appeal to the imaginary player in my head... But that player is not me. I am the one who actually played this game, and I can't wait for it to be over.