Air conflicts: Pacific Carriers

Here we go again folks yet another World War 2 flight simulator, Air conflicts Pacific Carriers developed by Games Farm and published by bitComposer Games is a little different than the rest.

We have had a number of WW2 flight sims lately none of which have lit up the gaming charts the best one so far being Dogfight 1942,which was good but uninspiring, so when I came across Air conflicts: Pacific carriers I thought, could this be the one to break the mould?

The game has brought a number of new ideas to the table, the first giving the player the opportunity to play as either the Americans or the Japanese, over four different levels taking in Pearl harbour, the battle of midway and Wake island, and with the added bonus of being able to have your own squadron it sounds like a winner.

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Well to be honest it isn`t the greatest flight sim game ever, yet it does have its merits, the graphics are the best I have seen in a flight sim game for the past twelve months and I do like the option of choosing your own squadron, with a choice of bombers, torpedo bombers or fighters each having their own different characteristics.

During battles you can swap between aircraft especially as you do run out of ammo (another good idea) which gives the game added realism, talking of which the control settings can be set to simulation instead of arcade, well in theory anyway in reality its more frustrating than real, especially when you try to shoot or bomb anything thanks to the camera wobble, apart from that it’s no different than arcade mode.

Gameplay is Ok, not brilliant, the usual stuff we have become accustomed to with flight sims lately, with plenty of dogfights and bombing missions, it is fun to begin with yet becomes repetitive after the first level, and what’s going on with the music? It’s repeated over and over with no variety and this does spoil the enjoyment.

The experience system is another nice touch yet poorly implemented, your pilot levels up the more missions he completes unfortunately it makes no difference to the gameplay, and with added touches like a number of optional missions which involve either sitting on a ship looking for enemy activity or patrolling the skies, a nice addition that breaks the monotony of constant dogfighting and bombing.

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Of course bombing ships and submarines is one of the most challenging and fun aspects of this game as you only have a limited amount to drop either bombs or torpedoes and it does take a few goes to get the hang of it.

Choosing your aircraft before a mission is good idea yet it would have been nice to have a little more info prior to the mission, as I have taken a fighter to a bombing raid on a few occasions which is as useful as a pair of gloves to a man with no hands.

Summary

Air conflicts: Pacific Carriers isn’t the greatest flight sim out there yet it has many innovative and original features, it’s just a pity that the gameplay becomes repetitive after a short while and with a number of glitches and the occasional drop in frame rate (especially in dogfights) it can become tedious , yet saying that there is plenty of variety and it is good to see new ideas being implemented within a flight sim game , not all of them work that well , but hats off to the developers for giving it a go.

Air conflicts: Pacific Carriers

Developers: Games Farm

Publisher: bitComposer Games

Xbox 360®

Playstation 3®

PC

Genre: Flight simulation

Release Date: 7th December 2012

Graphics: 4/5

Gameplay :3/5

Story: 3/5

Overall: 3.5/5