Pacific Fighters

1C Maddox crew changes theaters but keeps the core mechanics the same.

With Microsoft seemingly forsaking the Combat Flight Simulator franchise, 1C Maddox has been cleaning the house (albeit a smaller house) of the World War II flight simulation genre. Oleg Maddox's 1C Maddox developing house reached new heights of realism, depth and immersion with IL2: Forgotten Battles, and the company continues to work off that success (and its engine) for Pacific Fighters.

Taking a step back from the already saturated niche of WWII games set in Europe, the game takes place in the Pacific Theater, spanning from Pearl Harbor to Midway, ultimately to Okinawa. Meticulous work went into the researching of islands, airfields, and weaponry, and the quality shows--Pacific Fighters is one of the most immersive WWII flight simulators to date.

Virtual cockpits are stunning as in IL2: FB, and the graphics have been further refined to provide a more realistic atmosphere. Jaw-dropping water reflections and ripples, swaying flight decks of carriers, and the detail to the aircraft (especially when breaking apart) are awe-inspiring. Graphically, the only downsides were the clouds, which only seemed to come in one flavor--low alttitude--and the default skins, which were few and far in between.

Flight physics, the meat of the game, still retained the same level of depth--the problem is it didn't take it any farther. Flight models have been too cookie-cutter since the days of Forgotten Battles; every plane has a bit of an 'Ensign Eliminator' in them, with unsettling and many times unexpected snap stalls--lethal if flying at low altitude, which most of the time you are.

Stalls seem to be determined by a certain threshold level rather than the actual characteristics of the planes in real life; Zeroes, known for their gentle stalls that dip the nose, has jarring rolling stalls just as an F4U, especially in the later A6M5 variants--only difference being the speed at which the snap starts, rather than the angle of attack or the physics involved (such as a shifting boundary layer). Suggested joystick sensitivity inputs help somewhat, but the aircraft themselves still feel twitchy. AI planes especially still move like UFOs, darting and snapping in impossibly agile turns--and still problematically running into each other and into the ground in spurts of inexplicable empty-headedness.

The limitations of the engine especially come clear in a game where the opposing sides used drastically different methods of combat. Because all planes are easily prone to snap stalls, the U.S. is easier and more enjoyable to play--using the "Zoom & Boom" tactic (U.S. favored head-to-head passes at enemies instead of turning with them) removes the threat of virulent stalls, as opposed to "Turn & Burn" tactic (Japanese relied on old-school turning/maneuvering to get behind the enemy's tail), which forces you to fly the fine line between a hard turn and a flat spin stall.

For the overwhelming majority however, those things don't matter--after all, how many really know that a Zero is supposed to have sluggish controls above 200 knots, and needs a lot of trim to enter a high speed dive? Or that early P-38s really needed to worry about compression in high speed dives? Not many. And ripping a Ki-84 to shreds and seeing pieces of its skin fly off from your blazing .50 caliber machine guns still brings a smile and simple joy--aided by the little touches of oil splattering on windshields, fluttering and creaking noises, and planes that find a different way to explode every time. The exhilaration of getting the enemy in your sights and squeezing the trigger still hasn't worn out, even despite its similarities to FB.

The addition of carrier ops brings added challenges, and no late-war representation would be faithful to real life without kamikaze interception missions, a nice touch. Dynamic campaign resembles FB, and does alter your experience every time you play, but doesn't change the outcome of the war.

As Forgotten Battles, the fun of the game won't end at release--expect 1C Maddox to continually add more planes to the lineup. Flight model issues aside, the game still contributes to the world of flight simulating--and Pacific Fighters will nevertheless be fondly remembered years later, along with other Pacific sims such as Aces Over the Pacific, 1942: Pacific Air War, and Combat Flight Simulator 2.

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