WWII: Battle Over the Pacific

Midas's latest budget title is the equivalent of a brand new toilet that's been professionally plumbed in: everything works just dandy but it's incredibly dull. And if we were to stretch the analogy even further we'd go as far as to say that ten minutes with this is going to be like any trip to the lavvy: functional but instantly forgettable.

A game is supposed to be a slice of entertainment, a glorious distraction from the everyday humdrum tasks we have to endure to pay the mortgage or appease the teachers, not a chore. But choresome is exactly how Battle Over the Pacific feels.

From the graphics to the controls and through to the incredibly weak (and sometimes error prone) narrative this feels like a budget title through and through. Worst of all, it singularly fails in its objective to capture the excitement and drama of WWII dog-fighting.

Things start off reasonably well. Inside your hangar you get a choice between two aeroplanes: a fighter or a bomber. One is nippy and great in dog-fights but lacks bombs. Predictably, the other turns like a barge moored in marmite but can deliver a devastating payload – perfect for taking out the larger targets like ships and trains.

Although other planes are available to unlock, this choice between manoeuvrable fighter plane or slow bomber is about as taxing as your tactical decision-making gets. Although you can complete all the missions with any of the planes you're essentially limited to this choice between bombing or dog-fighting your way to success. But both have their drawbacks as we shall see.

The first few missions ease you into the groove of play nicely and while not exactly thrilling they do at least give you a chance to appreciate the difference between the two styles of play. But as the game goes on, and the missions unlock in their slow, deliberate crawl towards completion you begin to realise that this is all the game has to offer. Every mission is just a checklist of almost identical enemy units and objectives, more uniform than a row of shopping trolleys in a Tesco supermarket.

There's destroy-the-ships followed by engage-the-enemy-fighters. Or destroy-the-train followed by engage-the-enemy-fighters. Or destroy-the-radar-beacons followed by engage-the-enemy-fighters. Or if you're really lucky you might be offered a clever and subtle reversal: engage-the-enemy-fighters, followed by destroy-the-tanks. You get the picture.

Such limited structure and pedestrian pacing might have been forgivable if the action was exciting and compelling, but it isn't. The dog-fighting is the game's most engaging aspect, but even this feels like a chore rather a seat-of-the-pants thrill. This is largely down to the lack of tactical nuance. There are no barrel rolls, advanced air combat manoeuvres or even weapons that overheat. All your kills come about from arcing left or right as fast as possible while holding down the fire button. It's incredibly limited and thus repetitive.

There's zero sense of commotion, tumult or adventure. Your enemies show no sign of intelligence and you just pick them off one by one, their ridiculously inappropriate and lurid energy bars depleting until they disappear into a crumble of pixels. You can't even get onto an enemy's 'six'; most kills happen at relatively long range so you're essentially fighting red cursors.

Battle Over the Pacific particularly grates when you have to take out major enemy installations like bases, trains and battleships with non-bombing fighters. Swooping in to train your machine gun on them can be quite thrilling, but the edge is taken off when you realise your bullets merely chip away at the energy bar. It can take five or six tedious passes to totally destroy one target, then you have to move onto the next to do it all again. It's not that this is difficult or challenging, just that it feels like the video game equivalent of ironing socks.

Of course, you have the option of taking bombers out for the heavy targets but while you can get through ground installations quickly you'll then be stuck in dog-fight purgatory for even longer with a plane that isn't suited for aerial combat. The downfall of Battle Over the Pacific is that whichever strategic option you choose you're going to have to deal with tedium at some point.

But, like we said before, everything about the game works and is totally functional. It's not as if anything is broken or completely inept, it's just that very little effort has gone into the design, graphics or the little touches that elevate an average game to something noteworthy.

But this is a budget title, right? And perhaps we should be a little more forgiving?

Nah - when you can pick up plenty of older and more amazing PSP games even cheaper it rather undermines the point of budget gaming.

Forgive us for ending on another bum note but the truth of the matter is that Battle Over the Pacific is a budget title for a reason: it isn't worth your cash because it's not very good.

WWII: Battle Over the Pacific

The fact this is a budget title is its only saving grace, otherwise this is a very limited and dull shooter
Score
Mark Walbank
Mark Walbank
Ex-Edge writer and retro game enthusiast, Mark has been playing games since he received a Grandstand home entertainment system back in 1977. Still deeply absorbed by moving pixels (though nothing 'too fast'), he now lives in Scotland and practices the art of mentalism.