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Ubisoft’s latest game is set in World War II. Heroes of the Pacific provides a pretty good take on the aerial battles of the war. The game doesn’t have the most realistic flight model but manages to be fun nonetheless, and adds this to a pretty solid presentation with both good audio and visuals.
In the game’s primary mode, you play as Crowe, who signed up for the military alongside his brother just before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Crowe and his brother are actually there when the attack happens. Crowe is able to get out but his brother isn’t so lucky. The game hits all of the major battles in chronological order, mixing up the story bits with some World War II footage.
The campaign mode isn’t particularly difficult. You’ll usually be flying light planes though you’ll eventually get into more complicated planes like bombers and torpedo planes. You’ll usually have to drop something on an enemy target which is unusually fun in Heroes of the Pacific. The game does a good job of telling you when you should drop the bombs and torpedoes, allowing for some sly maneuvering as you try to get to the right height and angle to let those things drop. The game includes four difficult settings that never get to be too difficult do a pretty good job of providing successively higher levels of difficulty.
The campaign mode isn’t the only thing at your disposal though. If you aren’t interested in participating in the campaign mode you can always play the game’s instant action mode. The game also gives you the option of unlocking historical missions that more closely follow the real events.
Heroes of the Pacific has a fully functional online mode in addition to the previously mentioned campaign and quick play modes. The online functionality includes a number of different modes for up to eight players including free for alls and capture the flag modes. You’ll be able to use all of the planes unlocked in the campaign mode in the game’s online mode. There isn’t much else to do online since the game doesn’t do much different with its online mode but at least it is working. It’s a bit tough to find players online though which is a bit disappointing.
The game’s visuals are good yet pretty standard. The different plane models look very good and are definitely the highlight of the game. Even damaged plans look great since you’ll see the smoke just coming out of them. The areas look good thanks to the top-notch clouds and water effects. The water has particularly pretty reflections, and it is especially nice to see the sun just bouncing of the water. The PlayStation 2 version has slighty worse visuals and slighty less detailed textures than the Xbox version of the game.
The game’s audio is pretty good. The soundtrack is pretty effective at setting the mood though it doesn’t so in a drastically different way than other World War II games. The sound effects accurately recreate the sounds of combat since you’ll hear all of the shooting pretty well. The voice acting is pretty solid but unfortunately is a bit repetitive.
Heroes of the Pacific isn’t really a sim in any stretch of the word. That said, the game plays well, has a pretty good online mode, and provides a satisfying single player mode. Unless you’re tired of World War II games or really require your flight games to have extremely realistic controls, there is a lot to like in Heroes of the Pacific. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Oct 23, 2005
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