Sony
Heroes of the Pacific
By Ron Ayers
Feb 14, 2006, 5 :46 am

Heroes of the Pacific is touted on its own box as being the “Most Intense Dogfighting Action Game of the Year.” Sadly, it’s the only game in that genre available this year so far. This sort of statement ranks up there with the movies released in January that claim to be the “Best Comedy of 2006!” Let’s face it: the console-based flight genre is on life-support.  As much as I like to make fun of box art and testimonials, the good news for Ubisoft is that if there was any competition, HotP would put up quite a fight.

HotP takes a lot of its style from Sega’s cancelled Propeller Arena for the Dreamcast and Microsoft’s port of the PC cult-hit Crimson Skies. All the action takes place in a third-person perspective from behind your plane, which definitely gives each battle an immense scope. Most players will control their plane using the standard “Arcade” inverted control scheme, and if you’ve played Crimson Skies, you’ll feel right at home with this one.

HotP takes place in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Once you start a campaign, you’re thrown right into the mix in the middle of the Raid on Pearl Harbor with squadron after squadron of Japanese fighters and bombers buzzing around you. Each mission has several primary and secondary objectives that must be completed to declare a mission a success. Unlike some flight games, a primary mission objective failure means a total mission failure, so you have no leeway in this regard. After a few missions, your task force will hop to another island, moving slowly but surely across the Pacific.

Each campaign in the Pacific is prefaced by some extremely pretty artwork and video, and is narrated by your character, William Crowe. Once you jump into mission preparation, you’re given a map of the battlefield, along with a narrated overview of the mission which allows you to decide whether you want to head into battle with a Fighter, Dive Bomber, Torpedo Bomber, or Bomber. Depending on the mission objectives and circumstances, you may be forced to choose a specific plane type. Once you’ve selected your plane type, you’ll get to choose from the different planes that you’ve unlocked. From here you can also upgrade your plane by spending any points you’ve accumulated for kills and accuracy. You can also take it out to the workshop and spec it out to your needs.

Once in battle, the game feels very easy to get into. You can target by objective or by closest enemy, both in the air and on the ground. The radar gives you a good idea of what’s going on in the field of battle, and your radio communications keep you apprised of your current mission status and needs.  In the early stages, flying feels very difficult and not very dogfight-like. Both your aircraft and the enemy aircraft are fairly slow and underpowered. Just getting behind a plane and leading it will give you an easy kill, but if you try anything fancy, you’ll find yourself crashing into the water over and over again. Once you’re a few missions in, you’ll be hooked up with a few new planes that fly comparatively like modern fighter jets. As you progress through the game, it feels as though things gets easier due to the more maneuverable and higher-powered fighters you’re given; this feels odd, as historically accurate as it may be. Some fighters in WWII had a 19:1 kill ratio against their Axis opponents.

Dropping bombs on ground and sea targets requires proper technique, for which the game gives you a quick in-game tutorial. This takes a little bit to get used to, as there weren’t any fire-and-forget weapons in WWII. Some missions have multiple primary objectives including protecting or escorting different types of Allied vehicles and buildings. As a result, your bombing runs will need to become increasingly efficient; otherwise you won’t be able to complete the missions. Sometimes this seems a bit unfair, especially when they stack the different objectives very closely.

Each mission has checkpoints, from which you’ll get to restart. These are a godsend in many cases, and a mission-killer in others. There’s nothing worse than hitting an unexpected checkpoint when the ship you’re protecting can only take one more hit. On the flipside, there’s nothing like getting through that gauntlet and seeing the checkpoint reached, letting you know that you won’t have to deal with it again. Throughout the campaign, you’ll run into the Japanese Aces of the 13^th Squadron, which suddenly make previous battles seem like the minor leagues. Along with their wingmen, they’ll force you into some fairly insane dogfights that make anything you previously had seen up to that point seem like child’s play.

Outside of the campaign missions, you’ll open up historical missions that are true to life. You’ll also get to jump into multiplayer, which can be done split-screen, online or LAN. Sadly, the Gamespy-powered server for Internet play is sorely under-populated; after three different days of trying to get into a game, I was only able to find one. Multiplayer games allow you to throw in some CPU pilots and also have “pickup balloons” which can make you bullet-proof, double your damage and make repairs, which keep the game interesting and provide a variety of strategies. Sadly, if you’re here for multiplayer, you’ll probably want to head over to Xbox Live and its larger established base of online players.

The graphics and presentation of the game remind me of an old comic book, or the old-fashioned “YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!”-style of WWII propaganda posters you might have seen in a textbook. In fact, the presentation of the game, from the menu system and background music to the cut scenes and narration, manages to immerse the gamer into World War II better than some of HotP’s first-person brethren. If there is a Game of the Year Award for this type of presentation, HotP would be a nominee.

The watercolored look of the game feels just right. The game plays very smoothly, with upwards of 100 different fighters, boats and vehicles all zipping around at once. In a few cases, I felt like I was playing a three-dimensional version of the classic 1942. You may notice a brief frame-rate slowdown in a few rare instances, but nothing that seemed to affect gameplay. That’s quite an achievement when you’ve got so much going on-screen. The game does not support 480p on the PS2, but does have 16:9 widescreen support. The sound effects are fine, and what you expect from a flight shooter. The background music definitely screams of the patriotism of defending your country and the ominous threat of the Japanese coming for you.

Overall: 8/10

Heroes of the Pacific is a great game for any fan of the flight genre. For those of you who can’t wait for the next edition of Ace Combat or are hoping for a sequel to Crimson Skies, this will fill the void for quite some time. The game manages to provide an immersive experience that balances the needs of today’s casual gamer against those looking for a more realistic experience.