A Review: Aces Of The Pacific, DOS 1992

When I first downloaded this game, I was stupidly excited to be able to play it. All the reviews and comments that layered hype onto this title had me thinking it was some sort of 'super game', for lack of a better way to describe it. Instead, I was left frustrated and disappointed, and I felt somewhat bitter about the whole thing.

First and foremost, the actual flying part of this game is pretty good. Nothing is stupidly hard to get into, and actually piloting the planes is quite easy. There is an arcade-like feel to this game that I think helps open play for much more casual types of gamers. This means that this game doesn't require the player to read a huge instruction manual to just start the plane's damned engine. I can remember at least three other aircraft sim titles that I have encountered that you need to read the manual for just to be able to start your plane's engine, let alone actually fly. Being able to just 'hop in and go' was very much welcome, as I had originally thought that I would need to study manuals to be able to do anything at one point.

So what was my problem? Please allow me to explain.

The actual gameplay of this title I enjoyed and found to be something that I got into well. I had fun playing through some of the missions, but I found that the more that I played, the more that I got frustrated. That was the problem—frustration. The missions lacked solid direction and scripting, in my opinion, and often relied too heavily on the player searching for the objective. Mission targets lacked labels, and the player sometimes had to take a 'suck it and see' approach to play. Attacking something or bombing it before returning to base and either being greeted with success or failure. There was no end of mission dialogues either, and sometimes you could spend half an hour looking for something that was never there to begin with. I disliked the color scheme that was chosen and far too often found myself shooting down my own wingmen rather than enemy fighters. Progression was something that I grappled with as well, as often I would accidentally miss objectives due to the lack of labelling that I previously mentioned. Which would lead to me either failing to move on or losing the scenario completely. I'll be completely fair and say that when I chanced everything correctly and managed to do the required task and succeed in a mission, I did enjoy the game. However, for the most part, being frustrated and annoyed robbed me of that experience. I just couldn't get this game to 'work' for me and found that it just wasn't something that I enjoyed come the end, and this is reflected in my notes. At first, I was in-depth and detailed, but then I got so annoyed that I just sort of gave up caring, and no amount of eye candy was going to change that either.

Which is a shame as this game was pretty good-looking. The models for the planes were very well detailed for the time, with various components being individually animated and rendered. The ships and objects were okay, when you could find them. I liked the details and movement of the various gauges and dials; I thought that was a nice touch. The guns, explosions, and bombing effects were pretty good, with some nice smoke particles and such. It's just that no matter what, all I can really remember of this game is the single word, frustration.

Overall, I wish that I had liked this game more, but I found it to be an annoying and frustrating grind for the most part. It's a shame, but I think that this was one of the earliest examples of a game being overhyped.

 

4/10 – Could've Been Better!

Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ