Somewhere beyond the sea
Battlestations Midway was a marmite game, you either loved it or you hated it which is why I was surprised that there was going to be a sequel. Battlestations Pacific is supposed to be a true sequel and not one of those 1.5 sequels we come to expect from other games and the great part about this game is just that. It keeps the familiar air and sea combat but has made it more accessible and just a better package overall.
The campaign has been drastically improved giving players two campaigns to fight through. The Japanese side I found to be a lot more focused on sea combat and the US side seemed more driven by planes. Both give some amazing battles to fight in as well as some very slow and boring ones where all you can do is watch the ocean roll by. Yes this game still has a heavy wait before actually engaging in combat if you’re in a ship but when you get into the action it's very fun and strategic thinking about if you should be thinking of launching torpedoes, artillery or watching the skies with your AA guns for enemy planes. The game keeps these decisions completely up to you but when you have control of a huge naval fleet the A.I does a pretty good job and standing in for you while you are fighting elsewhere. The story of the US campaign follows the historical records from the end of the battle of Midway to Okinawa and the Japanese poses a what if scenario where you fight through the battle of Pearl Harbour to Midway and then onto the invasion of America. There are two cut scenes that sandwich both campaigns which show some average Joe soldiers getting shipped off to war and it just seems just a bit random and thrown in to show off Edios animation.
Now the problem with Midway was complex controls and confusing, chaotic combat that happened. This is all still there but if you go through one of the campaigns then you will begin to learn the basics switching from your mini-map to order your units and then jumping back to a unit when you want to take full control to get more accurate shots or want to dodge incoming artillery or torpedoes but as I said earlier if you find yourself in control of multiple units you will find that the A.I does a pretty good job. In fact I found them more effective at dodging torpedoes than myself.
There are over 100 different units in this game to control and some new additions include paratrooper planes to drop men to capture enemy islands and also kamikaze planes, plus the original variety of Destroyers, Dive Bombers, Submarines and many more including Battleships and of course the Yamato is back.
Graphically this game has had a huge overhaul. The water effects have been drastically
improved and the damage model on all units have been redesigned so that ships will break in two when hitting them with torpedo or bits of the hull will break off when a submarine is getting hit with depth charges. Even plane’s wings can get shot off. A variety of environments give the maps a very unique look, especially the night time maps when it is raining makes for a very strategic map as visibility is very low.
The multiplayer side to the game has five game modes to choose from. Duel sees you fight in a four verse four naval or aerial battles in a sort of Gears of War style of rounds and whichever team has won the most round in the time allocated wins. Competitive sees everyone on the same team fighting over killing the A.I. Escort places one team protecting a key unit and escort it to a location while the other team tries to destroy it. Siege is like King of the Hill where one team defends a location and the other seeks to capture it. Then my personal favourite Island Capture is where you get a set amount of points to spend on any units you like. Then you must fight against the enemy in controlling islands on the map which can give you options to more units to build, such as capturing an airfield will unlock the ability to build planes. Also the more islands you capture the more points you gain and which every team gets to the set score wins. All game modes are four vs. four and there are eight maps to play on which can also be altered to be small, medium or large. So hypothetically there are 24 maps.
Now one negative of the game is the voice acting. For the Japanese it sounds horrible especially in the narration in the beginning of the mission, but it doesn't harm the game too much. With 28 campaign missions to complete and a multiplayer that will see you working as a team in the style of an RTS, this game has a lot of hidden tactic to it. Then again there is a lot here for the casual player as well and with the help of more tutorials and the step by step campaign learning system the learning curve has been reduced to a bearably time.
