On a console overstuffed with first-person shooters, you had better come strong, or not at all. A FPS based on World War II is certainly not a novel concept, but the backing of The History Channel would seem to make for an interesting, authentic experience for Battle For The Pacific. If your definition of 'interesting' and 'authentic' is 'very short' and 'too easy', you are in luck.
What The History Channel does bring to the game is a decent intermission between levels. The in-between level movies and voice-over explaining the specific battle and area you are about to see do a decent job of explaining the war and describing the situation at hand. If only the developers made more use of their partnership with The History Channel, the game might have been a compelling experience, rather than one you would rather forget. They get the history, names, and places right, but little else feels remotely accurate.
As authentic as the weapons may be, the developers would have been wise to spend some of that time working on authentic gameplay instead. Most anyone playing this title will have no clue whether the weapons fire or reload accurately to the situation, but will quickly realize that shooting your C.O. in the back of the head will get a reaction, to say the least. Friendly fire does not exist, leaving you with no worries when your squad mates sprint out in front of your fire at the enemies. Shoot away, it will not injure, nor even annoy, them. In fact, unless the story demands that one of your squad mates die, it seems as though you are the only soldier taking fire.
Strangely, they seem aware of this convenience, and constantly take advantage of the fact. The A.I. of your squad mates is terrible. Your C.O. will stand around shouting at enemies that are not there after clearing an area, until you move forward and pull him along to expose the next enemy squad. Other times, he will ask you to follow him, and then stand around clueless. Still stranger, they will occasionally wander well ahead of where you can safely get and force you to fail out of a mission for not following. Oftentimes, they will bolt headlong into a group of enemies that will shoot at you as though you have a target on your helmet, while they charge forward unscathed. You stand back and fire away to clear the area smartly, while your C.O. shouts at you to follow orders and get near him. Evidently, acting irrationally and dangerously is part of your orders.
The game harkens back to a time where men had thicker skin, literally. Even on 'hard' difficulty, it seems to take an incredible number of shots to kill you. The same is not true of your enemy, who normally takes one to two shots to take out. Bullet detection is horrendous in the game, as shots near an enemy will likely kill him. You will notice your crosshairs turn red, as though tracking an enemy, when somewhat near an enemy; not just on top of them. Sometimes your crosshairs will change even when there is a large branch or rock between your gun and your enemy.
