Battlestations: Pacific is ready to give gamers everything they’ve ever imagined about combat from World War II by combining naval and flight combat. Much better than its predecessor, Battlestations: Midway, the campaign over the Pacific provides a great mixture of strategy and action to keep interest in the series for future installments. What exactly does Battlestations: Pacific accomplish that its precursor didn’t? Well to begin with the most interesting aspect, Pacific presents two campaigns to play through. Battlestations: Pacific starts where 2007’s Battlestations: Midway left off as the United States enters into the Pacific Theater portion of the war. With 28 missions in total – 14 a piece for the U.S. and Japan – there’s a tremendous amount of replay in the single-player alone.
Even more interesting is that within the Japanese campaign; you’ll be taking off where the Japanese left off with their crusade for expanding their empire – so Hawaii, you better look out! In addition to the missions themselves, the briefings and storytelling of the events is above par for a historical game as such. There is one short downfall for missions and how they are told; for gamers who like to mute their television sets or surround sound whenever there’s horrible voice-acting, you best be prepared as Battlestations: Pacific ranks up in the upper echelon of games with terrible voice-casts. Back on track, Battlestations: Pacific sports a variety of gameplay options. If you enjoy the naval side, then you’ll be able to take control of submarines and battleships of different sizes. If you are more into the aerial combat, Pacific sports the ability to take the fight to the air. With over 100 playable units in the game, and the chance to switch to any vehicle on the battlefield at any second, the combat is diverse and varied enough to keep gamers entertained throughout the entire campaign. Developed by Eidos Hungary, Battlestations: Pacific looks much better than its predecessor ever did.
With new weather effects and missions that take place at night, the battles on the stormy sea feel epic in nature. When ships are being blown to smithereens, crewmen blasted far off into the sea, planes shot down as their engines explode, the effects of World War II are brilliant to see when far away with Battlestations: Pacific’s grand scope. It’s only when you get close that you see that the effects, foliage and the like don’t look so hot. But when it’s all said and done, the visuals get the job done in the areas that were most importantly needed (i.e. the water). And real quickly, as for the sound department, it’s a give and take area that has vociferous effects, a fitting soundtrack and poor voice-casting. As for the multiplayer, Battlestations: Pacific employs five new multiplayer modes in the form of: Island Capture, Siege, Competitive, Duel, and Escort modes. Island Capture allows for teams up to four players to attempt to capture islands while defending their own. It’s reminiscent of Risk when it comes to strategy and how long a match could be; one of my matches took 45 minutes to complete.
You deploy units by spending points for your selection of ships, submarines, planes and the like, so be prepared for intense battles that will consume a good chunk of your day. For the other modes, Siege is your typical defend a particular position mode. Meanwhile Duel is a free-for-all with everyone going all out for victory. As for Competitive mode, it puts everyone on the same team, so they must accomplish objectives and shoot down enemies to rack up points. Lastly, Escort has players guarding a target from the other team who is out to destroy it by any means necessary. Overall, it’s recommended that players sharpen up their dogfighting skills, as they are crucial in victory for a majority of the multiplayer modes. It can be stated that Battlestations: Pacific is hands-down an improvement over the first installment in the series. The multiplayer serves up a hearty meal, the graphics are improved, and the campaign will consume many hours of your life. So take to the skies or the seas if you’d like, and give Battlestations: Pacific a play.
