Pacific Storm Preview

Imagine flying an A6M1 Zero over the Pacific. Suddenly you spot a fleet of American fighter aircrafts zooming towards you. Immediately you veer towards the arrogant mosquitoes and swat them with your missiles. Welcome to Pacific Storm, a rare WWII RTS game developed by Lesta Studio. RARE because it completely focuses on the Pacific region of WWII with no place for the European theatres unlike other WWII games.

Pacific Storm is a top-down simulation of the WWII between Japan and the United States over the Pacific Ocean. The player can choose to be either American or Japanese and lead your nation to victory. Generally, Pacific Storm is a RTS game with bits of simulation and arcade mixed into it. The game is to be played out on a map of the Pacific region, which some what resembles like the map in Risk. The map is divided into zones, which are neutral at the start but can be captured later on and turned into your territory.

The game starts with a lengthy tutorial which consists of six chapters which gives you the hands on experience about the interface mechanics ranging from setting engagement distances with your destroyers to upgrading your airfields to accommodate heavy bombers and selecting commanders for your fleet. Once you get the feel of the game, its time to move to the campaign. Pacific Storm has two single player campaigns. The first campaign is known as “Historical” and the second one is known as “Free”.

The name Historical says it all. In this campaign the game tries to stick with the realities of the war. This means that the United States start with a solid economy and Japan has a very powerful navy. Since the American troops will be pretty inexperienced to start with, the ideal way for a player who starts the game as Japanese would be to grab as many territories as possible before the American army gets powerful.

In the second campaign, the game tries to balance out the inequalities between the two countries though both sides still maintain their unique advantages over each other. This scenario will be easier for Japan as the Americans will have to make their own allies and their troops are stationed to the west coast.

Since the campaign starts before the war is declared, both sides will have some time to spruce up their economy and military and try to place their units in strategic positions. But the Japanese player will have to declare war on the US before 1941. The Americans have the option of launching pre-emptive strikes, ala Bush, but will have to be careful, as instigating the war would mean losing support at home and saddled with a slow economy. The victory condition of the game is same for both the sides. They must capture and hold atleast two key territories of the enemy. The American player will have to capture and hold any two of the four key locations of Japan namely Tokyo, Nagasaki, Osaka or Okinawa for four months. There is some rigidity for the Japanese player, as he will have to capture Panama and any one of San Diego, Monterey or Bremerton territories however he will have to hold these positions for only two months.

The game also features micro managing the resources. There are basically 4 main resources in Pacific Storm. Money, which is necessary to research new technologies and build troops, Oil, without which your fleet cannot move forward, Aluminum and Iron which are used to repair your damaged units. There are warehouses present at each base, which can be used to store the resources. These resources must be sent back home so that your factories can produce the armament necessary to fight the war. But you will have to make sure that you have got some resource stored at your base in order to repair, rearm or refuel your fleet.

Bases in Pacific Storm are key to the game. The ports and airfields present at each base can be used to send out sorties against the enemy. Upgrading your airfields will allow you to land heavy bombers, which can be used to attack enemy ships or destroy coastal fortification before an invasion.

As soon as you have a strong economy and build a large enough army, you are ready to go to war. The most entertaining aspect of this game is that you can take over any military unit you want. Though commandeering a ship seems too confusing, you can jump into the cockpit of a fighter plane and try out your own tactical dogfights with the enemy aircraft.

Though the exact details have not been given, the game has a multiplayer option. It will be interesting to see whether multiple players can manage a single country or you will have to manage a different one from your partner. Pacific Storm can also be played online with a competitive dogfight mode featured in the game.

With so much detail coded into the game, Pacific Storm offers something for everybody. The game contains elements of RTS as well as FPS when a vehicle is taken control of. It sure would be fun to play the game and every strategy fan will be looking at it with expectations. The game is scheduled to be released on August 30 this year. There is already an expansion pack of the game being planned upon titled Pacific Storm: Allies.

Vinay Mallabadi