World War II games have been around for a long time and most of them have become stale, over done and simply just will not die. But good World War II strategy titles have been very rare and when one comes along you should take notice. This is just the case of Battlestations: Pacific, the sequel to the excellent Battlestations: Midway which surprised many gamers, including me at its overall quality and fun factor.

Eidos Studio Hungary has brought the Pacific theater of war back to life with two stunning campaigns involving the Japanese and the United States as they battled for supremacy in the air and on the seas while island hopping around the Pacific. The first campaign is a ‘what-if’ scenario if the Japanese were able to win some key battles and where would the war have gone. The second campaign follows a true historical approach as the United States closely approaches and eventually defeats Japan ending second World War once and for all.


Gameplay

Battlestations: Midway brought some new gameplay to the action-strategy gaming table. It brought something to the table for everyone but the entire experience was over too quickly. Battlestations: Pacific has taken this formula from the original game and expanded on it while still keeping the overall game accessible to everyone.

You still control single ships from Destroyers, Battleships, Cruisers, Patrol Boats, Submarines and Carriers to entire fleets of ships with a large combination of ships surrounding your most valuable asset the Carrier or in some cases a Battleship. You also still fly fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers and even large scale bombers to lay waste to large areas of maps or even to devastate some of the bigger ships sailing the seas. Along with the ships and planes you also control turrets on planes and anti-aircraft weapons on land bases if you need to.

The game handles the controls very well allowing you to switch between units and even control specific weapon systems such as depth charges, torpedoes and artillery on ships then switching to a plane to launch a torpedo. If you want to though you could just issue orders and skip controlling the units under your control but there is nothing more fun than dodging incoming anti-aircraft fire from a fleet of ships and sending a torpedo and hitting your mark while escaping just to do it all again. Just like the first game you can manually control your guns on the various ships to hit specific areas of each ship but this time you need to be a bit more accurate as you can aim for the ships fuel stores, ammo stores or engine. Hitting the engine is great because it will slow down or stop the enemy and can allow your damaged units to escape or position themselves in a spot where the enemy cannot hit them or my favorite maneuver is to damage carriers and large vessels engines with destroyers and run away then have my sub hit them with a broadside of torpedoes.


The two campaigns offered in the game are very well done. The American campaign finishes off the first game with the eventual defeat of the Japanese and is very historical in its nature. The Japanese campaign on the other hand changes history and uses historical battle plans the Japanese were planning on using if they were successful at the Battle of Midway. While the single player campaigns are very well done that is not the only single player aspect to the game as you can play skirmish battles and like most strategy games, these are usually more fun and in the long run keep your attention for the duration of the game.

Multiplayer wise, Battlestations: Pacific is just as fun as the original game and battles can last a long time especially if both players are smart and understand how to play the game, but just like the real life battles a single torpedo or successful bomb drop can change the tides of the battle and the person winning is now watching his carrier or battleship sinking. The multiplayer modes include Escort where you have key units to defend and destroy, Siege which has attackers and defenders squaring off, Competitive where the players fight on the same side but against each other for points, Duel is a fight with single units against each other and Island Capture is a full on strategy game where you must capture small islands and this is certainly the most fun of all the modes.


Graphics

Battlestations: Pacific upgrades the graphics from the first game in a very dramatic way. The most notable upgrade is the overall look to the ships and planes which are now very high in quality and they have improved damage modeling so when damaged you can blow wings off of planes, blow ships in half, see them half submerged in the water and more. Next you will certainly notice the environments and if you played the original game you noticed at how bland they were but now we have beautiful skies all of the time, great weather effects and trees covering entire islands. Overall the graphics are not as important in games like this because you are constantly switching from unit to unit to your over view map and back again, but it is nice to see the level of detail and how well it has increased.


Audio

Overall, the game has some very good audio in all areas, but I have the same complaint here as I had with the first Battlestations game and that is the games big guns on ships and planes just do not have the punch that they should. Battleships are loud when they fire their big guns and they come off like pop-guns here. But the voice work, music and the rest of the sound effects are good and do their job well. It would have been nice to have the Japanese narrator speak in Japanese with subtitles but perhaps that could be added in a future set of downloadable content which I am sure will come.


Value

Battlestations: Pacific is great single player game mixed with a strong multiplayer game makes this a very high value game. With plenty of replay value to unlock new and special units which were coming and never used in the war this is a great strategy title to own for all gamers.


Bottom Line

Battlestations: Midway was a surprise hit and is still one of my favorite console games. It is a short experience and was easy for the most part and it also failed to finish the fight as it were. Battlestations: Pacific fixes much of the complaints from the first one and brings World War 2 home once again for arm chair generals. This is a must buy for strategy fans on any platform.