Battlestations: Pacific [360]

24 Jun 2009 at 11:08:48 by Andy Alderson
Systems used to review this title: (360)

With all the recent debate over whether real time strategy games can actually work on consoles - Halo Wars and EndWar argue in favour, Stormrise against - it's easy to forget that Eidos Hungary made pretty big steps in the right direction back in 2007 with Battlestations: Midway. Billed as a seamless combination of action and strategy gameplay, Midway had some interesting ideas at its core although it also suffered from questionable design in places. Complaints were levelled at the occasional horrific difficulty spikes, the baffling absence of a checkpoint system and the fact that where there should have been a strong central narrative tying the missions together, there was, essentially, nothing. With Pacific, it seems as if Eidos Hungary has taken on-board most of this feedback and adjusted the sequel accordingly, leaving only a few questions unanswered.

Pacific picks up where the first game left off, as US forces push towards Guadalcanal with the eventual invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa as the ultimate objectives. However, immediately noticeable to those who played the first game is the addition of a Japanese campaign, basically doubling the size of the game this time around. Now there is an alternate history campaign in which you can guide Japanese forces from the attack on Pearl Harbour to victory in Midway and beyond. It's undoubtedly a welcome addition and, while the Japanese missions, on the whole, may not be as compelling as the US ones, you can't criticise the game for a lack of single player content.

While there may be more of it, the core gameplay of Battlestations: Pacific remains essentially the same. For the most part, you are given command of naval and airborne forces and tasked with out-strategising the enemy to achieve primary, secondary and occasionally hidden objectives. Battlestations' hook, however, is that at any point in the skirmish, you can take control of any of the units under your command and throw yourself personally into the action. This means you can find yourself behind the yoke in a dogfight or on the bridge in naval combat. Or, if you're not a fan of the action, you can simply spend all your time on the strategic map screen and command your forces from there. It's this choice that defines the Battlestations series and is the reason why it's hard not to be impressed by the range of gameplay on offer.

That's not to say that action and strategy play a strictly equal role in Pacific, however. You'll soon find out that, if you're the kind of gamer who finds waypoints and supply queues about as interesting as a Bill Oddie lecture, you may struggle with Battlestations. While the option is there to take control of any unit, if you spend all of your time in the heat of battle and no time on the strategic map, you probably won't get too far into the game. While it's undoubtedly a sexier prospect to switch from plane to plane, battling the enemy above the glistening seas, if you don't keep an eye on your fleet, and your objectives, there's every chance you'll fail the mission. You simply can't ignore the strategy aspect if you want to succeed. And yet, this isn't really true of the action. You can choose to spend the entire game on the map screen if you wish and you'll be mostly OK, thanks to the impressive friendly AI and intuitive strategy control system.

But, the real joy of Battlestations is in finding that middle ground between action and strategy. There's something deeply satisfying about organising your forces, positioning them correctly, assigning targets and then directing the most crucial attacking, or defensive, manoeuvre yourself. Send your destroyers to deal with the smaller enemy vessels while you command a squadron of bombers tasked with taking down the enemy flagship. You can even do that thing your dad used to do and mutter "if you want something doing..." and take over to ensure that things are done to your satisfaction. In fact, sometimes this very approach can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle as taking control of a naval unit in a timely fashion allows you to manually implement repairs and evasive manoeuvres. Factor in the support queues - you'll have airfields, shipyards and carriers at your disposal at various points throughout the game, meaning you'll need to create the right units, with the right loadouts to achieve dominance - and you have what is essentially a grand, strategic balancing act with the choice to take an "action break" whenever you please.

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