Battlestations: Pacific Changing The Course Of History
Xbox 360 exclusives have been short of late, so when a demo of Battlestations: Pacific appeared on Xbox Live it instantly gained some notoriety. The game itself is the second title in the World War II flight simulator franchise called Battlestations and it's fast approaching.
Eidos Interactive announced the return of Battlestations on the 28th of February last year, adding that the graphics engine had been completely reworked to allow for a much greater depth of realism. As with Battlestations: Midway, Battlestations: Pacific once again focuses on historic events, this time surrounding the Japanese and American conflicts during World War II. The American campaign remains historically accurate, while the addition of the Japanese campaign allows for a feasible turn of events, if the Japanese had been the victors.
The Battlestations: Pacific demo helps to provide a good insight into the various areas of the game. It allows access to one mission from the American campaign, and two offline multiplayer modes against AI controlled opponents. The two modes offered are Skirmish, which is a variant of team deathmatch, and Island Capture, which involves a more tactical approach.
The single player missions are briefed using historical film footage, and this transcribes into the actual mission as battles are opened up with a film grain effect. Objectives are set out for you in plain view via the use of way-markers and a radar, therefore easing you into the action. The most obvious thing to point out is that while it's possible to maintain control of a single unit, as the mission progresses tasks are changed and this enables lots of different units to be controlled in the battle. For the majority of play, the controls remain fairly consistant. Most moving enemies require you to aim at a target box in front of them in order to damage and destroy them, but this only happens in close proximity, as at long range most weapons are totally ineffective. Plane controls are fairly fluid although it does take some time adjusting to the pace of the game. Dying can become an all too frequent occurrence, but for the most part it's quite difficult to use up all available support.
The game itself seems to draw you into the action quite well. The majority of sound effects and visuals are rather realistic, although there does seem to be quite a bit of lack of contrast to these as the mission goes on. However, variation throughout the mission does prevent this becoming too tiresome, as the first objective might start off controlling ships to shoot down kamikaze pilots, then the second objective is to take control of a plane and drop bombs on an airfield. Each unit had its own strengths and weaknesses, and that adds an interesting level of depth to the game. Often tactics have to be changed to prevent too many losses.
As for the multiplayer experience, the standard mode is fairly similar to the single player offering, except it's possible to choose from two different types of planes at any point. Island Capture, however, is far more deep and complex. Each battle starts with a set number of points to spend on launching various planes and ships. These then need to be sent to capture and attack various islands and doing so enables access to certain units. The battle is then won or lost when all Islands are captured by one side. To begin with its rather confusing trying to figure out how it all works, but for those willing to learn, the strategic element in this section of the game is very strong.
Overall, the demo provided a well rounded look at what to expect when the game is released. Whether it's ground breaking is doubtful, but as a testament to the conflicts between the Japanese and the Americans it stands out strongly. There appears to be room for a vast field of depth between the campaign and the skirmish modes, and Island Capture has some definite plus points. It's just a shame it's a bit complicated in places initially, but given time that would make the experience more rewarding. Only time will tell if they have in-fact improved on the formula when Battlestations: Midway was released.
