Codemasters Takes to the Unfriendly Skies
It's a World War II game and yet somehow it's not a first-person shooter.
World War II has been almost stripped bare by developers in search of inspiration for their first-person shooters, but not many aerial combat games have come out of the war. Codemasters's new combat game Heroes of the Pacific, though, the setting isn't as important as the massive scale of the flight combat.
The mission-based gameplay, which starts at Pearl Harbor and winds its way through key American battles, is home to massive dogfights of up to 150 aircraft modelled after 35 real-life fighters.
And it's not just the top numbers that are bigger. Victory is reliant on teamwork, and in Heroes of the Pacific you'll be able to direct up to 32 wingmen using simple menu-driven commands.
Multiplayer is, not surprisingly, a big selling point, but disappointingly the scale of air combat doesn't translate to human-on-human gameplay, as the player count maxes out at eight players, even on PC and Xbox, in multiplayer modes.
Heroes of the Pacific will be out for PC, Xbox and PlayStation 2 this September.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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