Battlestations: Pacific: Review

Endless ocean. Quiet and seemingly uninhabited islands. Tropical thickets. Ships. Aircraft. Submarines. An American fighter receives its last shell and falls into the water like a stone. The radio wheezes behind the scenes: “pshshh…Knocked out. pshsh". The player sitting in front of the monitor shrugs his shoulders, says “eh” and switches to another, not even scratched plane.

Battlestations: Pacific – natural cinema. True, there is no brutal protagonist here, but there are spectacular battles, the ability to choose different combat units right on the go, attention to detail and accessibility. But it may be considered an arcade, but a simulator.

Almost immediately after a detached briefing, we usually find ourselves in the thick of things. Everything around is exploding, the ships are shrouded in smoke, on land a machine-gun pillbox is already firing a belt of cartridges – in a word, the battle is raging all around. Well, we can take control of the plane and go bomb enemy ships. Or take the captain’s bridge yourself and give the command “Full speed ahead.”!». The main thing is to achieve the goal set by the command. In addition to the speedy annihilation of the enemy, the list of tasks includes the capture of control points (with the landing of infantry and its support), the defense of an object, or even a night stealth foray into an enemy port. Depending on the mission, the available means also change – it is clear that a two-hour assault will require attacks from both the air and the coastline, and it is unreasonable to send half of the fleet for sabotage. A trio of miniature submarines is more suitable for this.

At the right angle

IN Battlestations: Pacific you https://bingositesnotongamstop.co.uk/review/slottio/ can easily play with a mouse or a joystick: the “simulator” is in the details, and not scattered across the keys. For example, a heavy bomber stalled at low altitude is much more likely to fall into the water than a nimble fighter. And if on the way he comes across the burnt-out skeleton of some other aircraft, then both will fly down.

In contrast – a lot of arcade conventions. If the ship has a leak, then simply call up the context menu and order the team to turn on the pumps. After some time, there will be no trace left of the hole. You can aim at one of the critical areas (ammo storage, fuel compartment, engine) and even deal more damage, but the exploding shells will not finish off the enemy in one fell swoop. It won’t be possible to “overwhelm” enemy fortifications with planes – here you either honestly drop bombs, or earn a special kamikaze model by completing additional tasks.

If you get tired of controlling the equipment (missions are sometimes very long – how do you like the idea of ​​​​capturing an entire archipelago?), then you can go to the strategic screen – there, for example, you can set the direction of attacking units and draw up an action plan. Surrounding the enemy, sending three ships to different points for a synchronized attack – doing this manually is much more tedious than looking at a virtual map.

Battlestations: Pacific sometimes it resembles one very large staged battle from a Hollywood war movie. The developers have clearly made an effort to ensure that during, say, reloading (and it is relatively long here) or just a short timeout, you can admire the picture. The weather changes from one mission to another: it was just sunny, and now it’s a natural storm. Next task – and you can watch a beautiful sunrise. The special effects are good in any weather – “warm greetings” from air defense exploding near the wing or columns of water from falling shells – a very exciting sight even on medium graphic settings.

But the most important thing is the ocean. Reflections, shaders, etc. seem to be of secondary importance when the plane is in a tailspin rushing down towards its seemingly inevitable death, and at the very surface it still levels out, only slightly clinging to the waves with its wing and spraying the other side of the monitor with drops of water.

The only criticism is the sound – the orchestral music is performed at a decent level and even maintains the atmosphere, but diligently maintains the position of the “background”, without trying to give out some memorable motive in normal situations. Plus the voice acting of the Japanese side of the conflict – although it takes into account linguistic details like the unpronounceable “l”, the soldiers address their superiors only as “sir”.

Spectacular, accessible, with details. Fans of extremely serious simulators may not like the arcade feel, and those who are “just playing” may not like the episodes that are drawn out over time. But it’s nice that the developers didn’t show any tendency to go too far.

Pros: excellent graphics; many interesting details; wide range of military equipment.
Cons: bland musical accompaniment; some missions can last two hours.

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