Not a flight sim but an arcadey ariel combat game that plays out like a high drama comic book, Heroes of the Pacific will either deeply offend or highly amuse those familiar with its setting.  I’ve been keenly interested in the Pacific theatre of WW2 for many years now, and my reaction to this game was mostly joyful.  While my eye muscles are sore from all the rolling,  I couldn’t help but laugh at the saga of the game’s protagonist, the insane one-man army, William Crowe.  This phenomenal pilot who single handedly forces the Japanese to withdraw early from Pearl Harbor racks up an average of 70+ kills on most missions, establishing him early as America’s leading ace.  He far surpasses actual ace, p-38 pilot, Dick Bong, by the end of the war ten times over.  But he’s got a score to settle.  You see, his brother, Charlie, was on the Arizona when its magazine blew and William is out for blood on the fictional infamous 13th squadron.  They led the attack on Pearl and right after the Arizona blows, William vows vengeance in oddly but typical understated rage, “I’m going to get those damn Japs.  My brother was on that ship.”  Notice I didn’t use exclamation marks.  Neither does William.  And so his journey of revenge begins.

     Crowe blazes a trail of bloodshed and metal through the big battles of the Pacific: Wake Island, Marshall Islands, the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Marianas, Iwo Jima and a couple that slip my mind.  He is often the Allies instrument of victory.  Ships and planes appear that were ultra cool but seldom saw action because they showed up too late in the war and William wastes them all.  Early on, you torpedo bomb a huge Japanese I-400, a full three years before the Allies even knew of its existence.  You are responsible for taking out the Musashi as well as the Shokaku, and Mukami and Mogami cruisers.  The best stuff is the early appearance of aircraft.  During your battle through the war, you will occasionally meet up with the various aces of the 13th squadron who show up to combat you one on one, often with escorts, taunting you over their radios with jacked sounding accents and planes that show up at least a year in advance from when they actually did.  The final “boss” actually flies a Shinden, an awesome looking canard style experimental aircraft that boasts a higher speed than some of the jet fighters of the war, and holds a nose full of four 30mm cannon.  Only a handful of these were actually made and none saw action.  In the game though, beating the plane will have you flying it.

     That’s another cool part of the game: all the unlockable aircraft available. The better you perform during missions, the more points you get to upgrade those aircraft.  For instance, as seen in the screen shot above, you can upgrade your Dauntless SBD-3 to an SBD-4, increasing armour , agility and bomb load.  Yep, you get to fly dive bombers too.  The amount of different aircraft you get to pilot is staggering as is the mission variety which really keeps this game exciting.  The F4UCorsair, SBD Dauntless, TBF Avenger, Devastator, F4F Wildcat,F6F Hellcat, Bearcat, P-38 Lightning, Warhawk, P-80 Shooting Star, Kate, Val, Ki-84, Zero, J2m Raiden, Marauder, Mitchell, Betty, H8K Emily, PBY Catalina, ME-262 (that’s right) F1M Pete and Shinden are all flyable and most have four or more incarnations to obtain via points.  And those are the ones I could just think of off the top of my head.  You noticed the flying boats in that list?  Those missions are some of the most fun as you fly Catalinas in seek and destroy and recon missions.  There is actually battle where you take a B-26 Marauder up against two H8Ks in a titanic boss battle.  Also there is a mission where you have to sneak onto an enemy airbase with a Raiden and steal an M262 that the Japanese are evaluating.  Shortly after you take off, a fictional German ace shows up in his own souped-up 262, with rockets, and amidst a flurry of gunfire and racial epithets, you do battle with him over the Pacific blue while nearby Hien fighters and Pete floatplanes try to aid the German.  Sure, it’s silly as all hell, but a whole lot of fun if you are familiar with these planes and can get past the super arcadey flight controls. 

     Yes, this one is best played with a joystick.  And though the planes all fly very differently, the game has not a tenth of the physics as a hard-as-nails flight sim like Il-2 has.  The only way to stall is to reduce your airspeed to zero, and to take off, all you have to do is accelerate and go up.  Landing is just as easy onto a strip, the ocean or even a carrier, as all you have to do is fly through a pair of large glowing rings.  Basic acrobatics are possible, like Immelmans and split S’s but you don’t really need them, even at the higher difficulties which I recommend playing even in the beginning, because the enemy planes are sitting ducks at the normal level.  Not that this game is easy, even on that setting.  Yeah, while you will chew up enemy planes, some of the missions, particularly Guadalcanal’s “Backs to the Wall” and the last one on Iwo Jima can be quite challenging, causing you to play them over a few times to figure out the best way through.  Some may even give you trouble early on when all you get is a stinking Kittyhawk and you have to save a bunch of Wildcats who are out of ammo from several wings of marauding Pete floatplanes within a time limit.  But, challenge is good in a game that trades killer physics, historical accuracy, and flight times for mission variety, comic book drama and great particle effects.

     The sky, ocean and trim shading on the planes are gorgeous.  Not ultra detailed, the planes still look great and the particle effects with the blazing guns, though cookie cutter, are pretty.  The different weather and cloud formation are beautiful, even if they look like static hand painted backgrounds with some rain and lightning effects thrown in.  Plus, after a mission, you can view a replay of your flight and switch between various camera angles.  Too bad you can’t save them, but that is probably for the best as every time that happens in a game I go overboard with replay saves.  Multiplayer games can be replayed too. 

     LAN and online games are available, and with a bunch of people flying all sorts of different kites it can be a fun, furious dogfight, though it’s tough finding people to play and really, for that experience I would just prefer to play a real flight sim like MCFS2 or Il-2.  The campy take on WW2 and ariel combat is really only superb for the ridiculously fun single player campaign, not to say that seeing if your friends can take out your Black Widow with 5 H8Ks over Guadalcanal isn’t a slice of sweetness every once in a while.

    Though silly, the single player game is a challenging blast and the number of plane types will have warhawk aficionados gushing.  Multiplayer has its limits and for those who don’t care for anything but realism, then stay way away (like I have to tell you), but for those who dream of taking on an M262 with a rocket modified Shinden without worrying about stalls, blackout, redout, and well, physics, this game is a wet one.

-jr

SCORE:  8 Great