Reviewed: November 9, 2006
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud

Publisher
CDV Software
Buka Entertainment

Developer
Lesta Studio

Released: October 2, 2006
Genre: RTS
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

6
7
5
8
6.5

System Requirements

Whether you play the historical campaign or a freeform version where both the US and Japan are equal at the start half your battle for the Pacific is in your strategic planning and war preparations. With the strategic planning decisions, gearing up for war and the tactical fighting trying to win battles that could turn the tide of war you would think that would be enough. The simulator fighting in airplanes or arcade shooter also works quite well and adds even more to the fun of Pacific Storm.

Pacific Storm takes place in the Pacific theatre of operations before and during World War 2. You start as either side, the United States or Japan, to prepare for war and gear up your forces. You will have about a year before the war starts so if you’re playing the freeform version that time is precious. In the freeform play the game starts with a few bases on the West coast of the United States while the Japanese side has theirs on the islands of Japan.

Each side must race to control the islands that make up key stepping stones across the Pacific Ocean to control the seas. Once you gain a foothold on each island you need to build the bases infrastructure and defend the base once the war breaks out. You also need to gear up for war production and research new technologies to get that edge over your opponent. The war is coming fast and you also need to build up your war machine by making ships, planes and other resources for use in the fighting to come as well as locate them at your various bases.

In the historical play you start with as accurate a version of the war from January 1st, 1941 as they could make. You have the key locations the United States or Japan had at the time with the United States having more bases while the Japanese had more combat veterans ready to fight. You must locate your forces where you think they need to be as the war will strike but don’t be sure that Pearl Harbor is the place it will start. With your moving forces around the harbor that saw the real attack and start of the Japanese part of World War 2 is not necessarily where it will start in Pacific Storm.

In either version of gameplay you have a good start on your forces with a good resource in your real life commanders like Chester Nimitz or Yamamoto Isuroku. You also have the resources that both countries had at the time plus you get to research new technologies like improved radar, jet engines or even the atomic bomb. You need to also decide what resources you want produced beyond the normal ammo and fuel to supply your forces and build up your war machine.

The strategic level plays on a large map of the Pacific Ocean with all the islands clearly labeled when you take them for your side. You have small icons and information bars for both the bases and your ship to give important information about them. During the strategic play you move troops, equipment and supplies by transport ships and aircraft either automatically or by careful management personally. There are a lot of resources to move so some of it is nice to allow the computer to handle while you concentrate on the important stuff.

You will use menus and pages for strategic development of resources like building ships and planes or the page for technology research. These are simple menu based pages where hovering your mouse over the pictures will bring up information about the item or production. Handling production, researching new technology or resource deployment is all easily handled while the game is on pause on the strategic level.

You can build your forces into divisions and battalions along with other military formations just like in real life to coordinate efforts of large or small groups of troops and resources. You need to decide what goes where and in what formations to best counter the efforts of the enemy and win the war. Much of this will be careful planning of where your resources are and how well you prepare but some will of course be guess work on things like spotting ships during reconnaissance flights or probing by the enemy at various bases before a big strike.

Some islands have no room for airport runways so you have to make do with the size and location of each of your bases and work at gearing up for war. Each base will have certain structures you will need to build like barracks, hospitals and defenses. Sometimes the computer will require you to build certain things at some bases for a bonus once completed or a fine if not.

The tactical level starts when forces attack on the strategic level and the map loads using the real land and sea area of battle. You decide what to do using the resources that were in the area of the strategic level and sometimes if units are close enough call them in for support. Controlling units by their command structure is made easy using icons in one corner of your main screen while control of individual units is a click away using those icons. You have a small mini map to help you keep watch on the entire area while the battle is underway and you can make use of the pause while combat is happening to help during intense parts of combat.

You can order individual units or whole battalions and divisions to attack, defend or retreat with simple command menus and the icons of units or individual units on different parts of your screen. You can also let the computer handle all the parts of the battle and hope your planning was good enough by telling the computer to auto battle and the fight will conclude with the results being displayed for you to either gloat or leer at.

Pacific Storm has encompassed the entire Pacific Theatre of World War 2 into a very fun but rather long strategy game. You need to make careful decisions about your strategy and planning. The game plays well but with this much work and variety of areas that the game entails there are sure to be some problems. The game currently has bugs that are being worked on them and a patch is coming soon for the American release of Pacific Storm.

Some of the bugs I will talk about in other sections but a couple occur during the gameplay. Using the joystick for me was no problem but others have said that there are crashes to desktop when using it. Other problems that I did see during gameplay were more of a frustrating nature and just made the game less of an enjoyment to play.

The game does not do well with transporting resources; if you need certain equipment at a base you better move it yourself as the AI will eventually get around to it instead of being able to prioritize certain things. Transporting to the Pacific should be done as it was in real life using depots and the supply chain but the game just moves things from one base to another as it sees fit.

The game also does not take control of aircraft positions you are not in on multi seat planes in the tactical battles. If you want to shoot at aircraft attacking your bomber you are still flying the plane with one hand and shooting with the other. Most of the problems I saw dealt with the AI and how it did not do quite enough to make your job easier while playing.

There are a good number of graphical adjustments for your system that can make the game look or play better. The games overall feel and look in the strategic level was well done with the map being on a table like a planner of a war might be doing and the small ship icons moving around to tell you were things are. The tactical battles are handled in real time and look very good with realism adjustments like shadows, clouds and texture detail.

In the first person simulation and arcade shooter they have done a great job with not only the transition from one to the other but also the feel that you’re controlling an aircraft or anti aircraft gun. The planes fly great and look very well while the anti aircraft feel and look just like the real thing. In all the areas of the game from strategy to tactical to simulator the developers have put enough effort in all of Pacific Storm so that they look very good.

There are settings to control the volume of the well done background music and themes during load times as well as the effects and voices you hear. There are controls to turn on or off the radio chatter while in airplanes as well during gameplay. The sound in Pacific Storm is pretty decent but nothing about it is above average.

One of the biggest complaints I have about Pacific Storm is the lack of some help or directions to get some things accomplished during gameplay that I wanted. Many parts of the game will be trial and error or asking fellow war buffs on the forums for help to do certain things. Things like how to move bombers across the ocean to get them to bases or even the commanders that start out at your home base to the stations you want them to have not been addressed in the manual.

But many of the problems I had are ones that I could find out answers for or get the solution from trial and error of the game. Strategy games are kind of you either love them or hate them affair and if you like the genre than Pacific Storm is a must have. The games freeform or historic play will last for weeks just to get all your resources properly managed and to see you a good way into the war. This is not a game that you play through easily in a few hours, it will take awhile to play through one of the campaigns whether you win or lose.

There are also a number of tactical battles from real history or ones they have made up that you can try your hand at to see just how good a tactician you are controlling your forces. Included with the game is also a tactical battle planner that allows you to create your own battle scheme to play around with. You choose the area of combat, the units each side has to start with and any that can be called in for reinforcements and try your hand at being commander. You can make either side as even or over powered as you like for some real war fun.

Whether you like the feel of strategic buildup and planning for the big war or as tactician in battles Pacific Storm has enough variety that it sets itself apart from previous strategy games. Although not exceptional this strategy game does set itself apart enough to warrant a look by strategy gamers.