Developer: Abacus
Publisher: Abacus
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Reviewed by: Bob Nielsen
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Review Date: July 21, 1999
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Summary and Rating
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What's Good
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What's Bad
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4.0 out of 5.0
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- New aircraft
- New scenery
- New ships
- Adds Pacific missions to Combat Flight Simulator
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- Graphic inequities
- No campaign mode -- still!
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As stated in an earlier review, Combat Flight Simulator is one of the best WWII sims in existence today. However, as any self-respecting flight sim and history buff -- like myself -- knows, the war didn't only exist in Europe. There was a second front in the Pacific, where America was brought into the war by an attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Abacus attempts to re-create the atmosphere of the Pacific area of battle with a CFS add-on appropriately titled Pacific Theater.
Pacific Theater doesn't necessarily upgrade CFS so much as expand it. There are several add-on aircraft, from the P-47 Thunderbolt flown by the American Army Air Force to the venerable Japanese A6M Zero, the leader of the Pearl Harbor bombing.
As I stated in the review of CFS, Falcon 4.0 jocks have a cakewalk compared to the pilots of WWII, and, like CFS, Pacific Theater captures this feeling perfectly. The plane models, while maybe not completely accurate, are convincing enough to make the player feel as though he (or she) were actually flying the specific aircraft.
The missions are not set out in a campaign, rather they are available as single missions and allow players to fly for both the AAF and the Japanese Imperial Navy. Flight models are fairly accurate, with stalls and all malfunctions accurately represented.
However, this beauty does have an effect on the frame rate. On my system, a P-233, the frame rate stuttered and stammered a few times, almost as if the sim were trying to make up its mind -- Do I REALLY want to do this? -- but, still, this is an annoyance more than a hindrance. Additionally, if you turn the cockpit graphics off, the frame rate improves exponentially.
The immersion factor of this game is excellent. As with CFS, the excellent combinations of graphics and sound create the illusion that "You Are There". While flying a CAP on the morning of December 7 -- actually, it was at 6:45 pm on July 16, 1999 -- I thought to myself, "Wow. If this is what our boys really dealt with up there, no wonder so many of our guys bought the farm." This add-on really brings the heroes and villains -- with all apologies to any readers of Japanese descent -- of the Pearl Harbor raid to life.
Pacific Theater: It's a great add-on to CFS, and while it doesn't implement any ground-shaking new features, it does allow the player to feel as if they had relived that "day which would live in infamy." Definitely recommended to any CFS player.
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