Battlestations: Pacific (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Sam Pow on 07.01.2009
The pounding action, deep strategy, and various other factors help Battlestations: Pacific rise above it's predecessor, Midway. It's a great game, and manages to create a WWII game that isn't a shooter and succeed.
Title: Battlestations: Pacific
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Eidos Hungary
Players: 16
Genre: Action, strategy
Rated: T for Teen
Last year Eidos released Battlestations: Midway, a WWII game that aimed to combine action simulation and real time strategy into one experience. It held mediocre reviews, but now Eidos has released Battlestations: Pacific, the follow-up to Midway. This time around, there are many improvements, and noticeably so. The games unique blend of action and strategy is crazy fun, but the game itself is a bit inaccessible. While it conquers Midways problems in many areas, it still holds a few unfortunate flaws that keep it from being great.
Gameplay
Gameplay in Battlestations is great fun, allowing you to control either a plane, ship, or submarine. The planes are fun to dogfight in, and make bombing runs. It takes a bit to get used to the controls, but once you do you'll have complete control over them. There are many kinds of planes, ranging from dive bombers to kamikaze planes, and all are fun and unique. Ships are a much slower, more strategic thing to control, as you can use your artillery to target specific areas of other ships. With this feature, you could destroy an enemy's engines, stopping them in their tracks, or you could target their magazines, disabling their fire. This is a fun idea, and adds a little tactic to ship battles, which otherwise are fairly boring because of auto-aim (which cannot be turned off). Ships also have AA guns, which are really fun to use, firing down planes buzzing all over the skies. The submarines are my personal favorite, hovering below the depths of the sea, silently stalking their prey. They utilize a 4-depth level system which specifies how deep you are and what weapons you can use. The tactics come in, as you cannot be hit as easily by depth charges at lower levels, but you lose weapon control. Overall it works out and makes things more realistic.
The game includes two campaigns (American and Japanese) which are both fairly long. The American campaign takes you through the events of the war of the pacific in various naval and air battles. The Japanese campaign offers a different reality in which the Japanese are successful at the Battle of Midway, dramatically changing the odds of the war. Both are interesting and have some good gameplay features that draw you in to the events of the war.
The game also features fairly extensive tutorials so that you can get a hang of the combat, but you're kind of left in the dark as to what each specific unit does. You'll end up referring to the manual a LOT.
Lastly are the multiplayer and skirmish modes. Multiplayer includes several different game types, which are escort, duel, competitive, siege, and island capture. In escort you'll attack or defend an MVP unit, in duel you'll compete as a single unit for a round in an elimination type game style, and in siege you'll either assault or defend an island. Last of all is island capture, the most intriguing and well thought mode. You're given a certain amount of points and a command base (on an island) that can spawn units using these points. You must strategically use your points to take over other islands and defeat your enemy by taking the entire map. Sending out landers, coordinating attack plans, and creating and managing units is all fun and easy from Battlestations command map. This is the strategic diagram you use to control all your units.
The problem is, the game doesn't have the one crucial thing it should: a simple battle mode. All the modes give you objectives like escorting or playing only as an AA gun, but there is no mode that gives you a bunch of units and just says, "Battle it out". Island capture comes the closest, but sometimes you just want to enjoy the action without the strategy. This may sound insignificant, but it ends up being a big deal.
Graphics
The game looks spectacular. Everything about the units, from battle damage to people walking around on the ships, is done with great detail, and makes the experience that much more realistic. The water is definitely the best part, though. It shimmers in the sunlight, and once you get closer to shore you can gradually start to see the sea floor, and underwater rocks and other structures underwater. The islands look good from a distance, almost realistic, but once you get closer, you'll start to notice that the textures are a bit stretched, which is kind of discouraging considering how good they look from far away. The island layout is also interesting, as each island has unique features and buildings, and it really makes it seem like each island has its own story, which made the battles more epic for me.
The frame rate never disappoints, either. Even when your kamikaze plane is shooting toward a battleship going hundreds of miles per hour with explosions everywhere, the game still runs as smooth as a buttered pig in a barrel (sorry about that simile). Pop-up is minimal if at all. Islands progressively form in the distance as you fly toward them, especially in cloudy or stormy weather.
Another thing handled well is the animations. The ships moving through water and sinking all look fairly believable, and there are no instant disappearances here, once I was at the lowest depth a submarine can go, and happened to notice a piece of a destroyer submerging nearby.
Sound
Audio manages in certain areas and excels in other. The music is nothing special, and is what we have come to expect in WWII games. The sound effects are great, though, and help to enhance the overall experience. Booming cannons, lightning-fast machine guns, and churning water are all present, as well as sound effects for things like thunder storms. Engines grind in the distance, and huge battles can be heard from across the map. It really is great to listen too, and this game is awesome in surround sound.
However, the games one epic fail probably results from the voicework. The voices you hear throughout the game (especially the Japanese) are atrocious. The voice actors don't even sound like they are of that nationality, and the Imperial Navy radio transmissions are just insulting. It's unpleasant when your fellow planes at the attack on Pearl Harbor sound like they're barely holding back laughter trying to get their lines out.
Lasting Appeal
I really, really want to recommend this games replay value, but as I said before, the absence of a battle mode is catastrophic. Each time I'm looking to go and play Battlestations again, it's mostly for the fast paced action, and there isn't the single "battle" mode that I want. If I can get my gaming mind to work fast enough, I can start off an island capture map on the smallest map with the least units, or I settle for a duel match, but it's never exactly what I want from the game. It hurts the game overall.
Admittedly, though, the island capture mode does offer the single most replay of any game mode, and should keep armchair generals going for hours. The other modes are fun to play, but didn't hold my interest for long. Luckily, there is enough variety in them that you can skip around.
The campaigns themselves offer good time, and each one should take anywhere from 6-8 hours to complete on a single difficulty. The Japanese campaign might take a little longer depending on how many times you quit halfway through the submarine levels. The fact that each one has such diverse and historically based missions is a nice touch to what could have been "you are a plane, go blow up this ship".
A big draw to the campaigns is that they unlock new units, which you will crave. The various types and varieties of units will keep you interested in all the game modes. There are tons of units, so playing the game modes can be different each time, and that adds tons of replay value.
The 411
Battlestations: Pacific exceeds in almost all the areas Midway did not. It creates a new kind of action-strategy hybrid, and goes places most games don't. If you're looking for some fast paced action, or advanced strategy, either way Battlestations delivers. In a market where almost every WWII game is a FPS, Battlestations breaks new ground and creates a fun gaming experience.
Graphics
9.0
The game looks great, from the water effects to each individual unit. The only problem is how the islands look up close
Gameplay
8.5
Using various unit types and the all-knowing strategy map combine to make a seamless experience that's easy to play
Sound
7.5
Sound effects are good, and music is average, but the voicework will leave you crying with laughter (in a bad way)
Lasting Appeal
7.5
It's got lots of modes and fun campaigns to keep the fun lasting, but it's missing the one simple mode it should have: battle
Fun Factor
8.5
This game is FUN to play, whether you're lumbering around as a battleship, speeding along in a fighter, or spending your time making tactics in the command map
