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BATTLESTATIONS PACIFIC REVIEW Posted by PlayDevil.com Staff on Jun 8, 2009 11:05 (Jun 8, 2009 11:05) |
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However, rookie difficulty is really easy, and the game is only really a challenge on veteran. There’s also hidden objectives which you must complete to get gold medals, which can be used to upgrade or unlock new units. This works well and does add some replayability to the missions. Overall, it’s an excellent package that had me addicted throughout both campaigns.
Graphics & Sound:
Graphics were the major weak point to me in the first Battlestations game. Happily, 'Eidos Hungary' have a gorgeous new engine in place to run the game, and my goodness it is impressive. Draw distances are around 2-2.5 miles at sea-level, and more at altitude.
Detail on ships has been improved, with crew-men wandering around and doing their duty, and some lovely textures on planes. The underwater view has also been hugely improved, with some lovely post-processing effects and a far more detailed sea-bed and draw-distance. There are also some cracking weather effects, and the sea itself is beautifully rendered. It is also animated, causing waves and undulations if you miss with your artillery barrages and end up hitting water.
 There are also some good splash/droplet effects on screen too. Screen tear is all but eliminated over the first game, although there can be some frame-rate hits during frantic air battles. In addition, loading times can be fairly frequent and are also pretty lengthy.
The sound is, however, less impressive. Much of the music has been recycled from the first game, and whilst I don’t have much of a problem with this, as it was always an impressive score, the fact that there isn’t much more at all, and some areas in the game feel like they should be scored makes the omission of new music all the more surprising.
Effects are solid but unspectacular, and could do with a little more low-end bass to be honest, whilst voice acting, never great in the first game, is completely cheesy and over the top to the point of getting a little annoying at times. Certain phrases also only have 2-3 variations, so if you lose 20-30 squads of planes and some ships in a huge battle, the repetition can become quite tiresome.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer was always a strong point of the original title, and although the community was small, it was dedicated and you could almost always find a game of something. Thankfully, the developers have kept that dedication to their fans by further expanding the multiplayer modes.
 You can now take part in some smaller scale, faster paced deathmatches, as well as the new, and awesome island capture mode, which plays out like a large single player mission except against human opponents. It all works pretty well, with a decent lobby system, no noticeable lag, and a decent number of games at the minute. However, my one gripe is with the levelling system.
Sure, it’s all the rage, but here, it lets you unlock way more powerful vessels, so two level 5 players will have a significant advantage over two level 1s, and at the same time, there’s no way of telling what level your opponent will be before you play. Hopefully a patch can sort out some of these issues.
Conclusion:
"Battlestations Pacific" could have been a brilliant, 9.5 or even 10/10 game if it hadn’t regressed in certain areas. A beautiful new game engine, a huge campaign, and even deeper multiplayer options would have made it one of the most addictive strategy games of all time, but it just misses the mark. The ill-thought ranking system, and the slightly more arcadey, less strategic gameplay than before just weaken the title a little bit.
However, this is still a fantastic game that anyone should pick up and will be rewarded with great gameplay and value, and for armchair generals, the series remains a must.
Pros:
+ Better graphics
+ Huge campaign + Better MP options Cons: - Less strategic
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Jun 12, 2009 20:10:18 (Jun 12, 2009 20:10)
