''Heroes of the Pacific'' is an aerial combat simulator game set in the Pacific Theater of Operations during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Plot

The player assumes the role of William Crowe, an American who experiences the various phases of the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

with Japan, beginning with the

Pearl Harbor attack The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

in December 1941. Crowe's brother Charlie is killed during the attack. He is restationed at Wake Island where he comes under the command of Admiral Daniel Howells. He later participates in escorting Howells off the island as it is about to fall to the Japanese. When they make it to the Lexington, Crowe gets a new squadron consisting of Cunningham, Murphy, Slater, and commanded by Callahan. The Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Marshall Islands are all featured in one or more missions. The final mission of the campaign is on February 23, 1945, with the raising of the United States flag on Iwo Jima.

Gameplay

There are six game modes: Campaign, Instant Action, Single Mission, Historical, Training, and Multiplayer. One or two players can play simultaneously on the console or up to eight players can play on the network via

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or using a

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

with

network adapter A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Ear ...

. There are two different control schemes for flying the planes, Arcade and Professional. The Arcade control scheme allows for easier control of the plane via a single joystick with automatic rudders, while the Professional controls offer separate control of the pitch, roll and yaw of the plane. ''Heroes of the Pacific'' also offers multiple difficulty levels: Rookie, Pilot, Veteran, and Ace. Completing missions on higher difficulty unlocks more planes and rewards the player with more upgrade points, which can be used to upgrade unlocked aircraft after missions are accomplished. This simulation also allows players to pilot famous planes such as the

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...

F4U Corsair The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft which saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Designed and initially manufactured by Chance Vought, the Corsair was soon in great demand; additional production contract ...

P-47 Thunderbolt The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...

and a number of Japanese and German planes from World War II, including several experimental planes, such as the Blohm & Voss BV P.215 and the J7W Shinden. Ten campaigns, with 26 missions taken from real events of the Pacific campaign. While some of the missions in the game require specific planes (such as the

PBY Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served wit ...

), the player can usually choose which plane to fly from the allowable classes for each mission (Fighter, Dive Bombers, Torpedo Bombers, Bombers).

Development

''Heroes of the Pacific'' was developed by Melbourne development company Thatgame, who merged with IR Gurus shortly after the release of the game. In 2008, IR Gurus was renamed

Transmission Games Transmission Games (originally known as ''IR Gurus'') was an Australian game development company, specialising in sports and action games. Originally, Transmission Games was established as IR Gurus Pty Ltd in 1996 by Craig Laughton, Andrew Niere ...

. Many of the members of the development team previously worked together at Melbourne House, on titles such as '' Test Drive: Le Mans'', ''

Grand Prix Challenge ''Grand Prix Challenge'' is a Formula One racing video game developed by Australian developer Infogrames Melbourne House and published by Infogrames for PlayStation 2. It was released in Europe on 22 November 2002, and was officially licensed b ...

'', and ''KKnD2: Krossfire''.

Reception

According to the

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website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, ''Heroes of the Pacific'' received "generally favorable" reviews on all platforms.

References

External links