Pacific Storm

[Cain]

QUOTE: "What do you get when you combine Rome: Total War, Risk, Axis & Allies and Gary Grigsby’s War in the Pacific? You get Pacific Storm, a real time strategy game/action combat hybrid.

 

I’m always afraid of these types of games because when you try to cover everything, you sometimes cover nothing. That’s not the case here! We’ll cover more about this later. I think the first thing I should mention is the installation process. This is something that I almost never talk about during game reviews. Either the game installs or it doesn’t.

 

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5313/shot0017tz7.jpg

 

However, this game was a mess to install and that’s always a bad sign. I received the U.S. retail version for review, it even had the anti-theft device in the box. I put the CD in my drive and let the auto install do its stuff. About 5% of the way in, I was greeted to a viscous CTD and a reboot. This continued at various points of the install program until I copied the files to a temp folder and installed from there. I felt it necessary to point this out just in case anyone else encountered the same problem. I should also point out that this could be a problem with the game, or it may have something to do with my computer in all fairness.

 

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7163/shot0000kt7.jpg

 

Pacific Storm (PS) is a game about the U.S. war in the pacific with Japan during World War 2. The game takes place between 1940 and 1948. The game provides elements of a global strategy game, tactical combat, and flight simulation. Although it may be a stretch of the imagination to consider the flight simulation aspect anything other than an arcade game. For those of you that own Sonylast’s Dangerous Waters the helicopter and Orion flight model’s seem like Lock-On’s compared to PS. Now, I do have a problem with games that try to combine different genres into one game. Sometimes when you try to be a jack-of-all-trades, you become master-of-none. However, aside from the basic arcade simulator, PS does everything else very well. You can play either as the Japanese or the U.S. in large scale naval and air operations in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO).

 

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3322/buildings1d1np.jpg

 

During the real-time aspect of the strategy game, you develop new technologies, build new weapons and deploy new weapons, including nuclear for the Americans and biological for the Japanese. The war could go either way, there is no set script, other than the fact the U.S. can’t declare war on Japan without a major penalty. On the Japanese side, you must declare war on the U.S. within a year of starting the game or you will lose. Once you build up your infrastructure and war machine on the world map, there’s a lot to do here. You must build up your forces, get production going, store resources, manage fleets, assign commanders, move personnel, develop bases, well you get the idea. The world map is made up of zones and when opposing forces enter the zone, tactical combat takes place.

 

http://media.gwn.com/reviews_mp/246929185454ea41b14af9.jpg

 

Tactical Combat is done on a 3D map using a large selection of beautifully rendered 3D units. There are dozens of units all represented faithfully. On some of the ships you can see sailors manning the guns on the deck. There are some problems with the 3D portion of the game, including some path-finding issues next to landmasses and super torpedoes. You can’t expect to win battles by just pointing and clicking. You must take into account, ship size, maneuverability, caliber size, ship position, etc.

 

http://usera.imagecave.com/kilomana/ps_plane_pics/instruments.png

 

The units possess learning abilities, although I expect that they do cheat at times. In my first campaign, the Japanese did two things. First they attacked my weakest defended bases with superior forces and second, they tried to attack my strategic bases with inferior forces. So it was clear to me what strategy the enemy was going to use. The Japanese are relentless, because they know that if you as the Americans can hold off the initial attack, they will be crushed. There is some serious micro-management to do during all phases of combat and some things are not clear when you do them.

 

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/5083/shot0001yl6.jpg

 

For example, some buildings and structures require two parts to be built, but it’s not clear on how to do it. There are no build times readily apparent for you to review at a glance. Some things take years of game time to build and it would be nice to review them somewhere before you commit. Fortunately you can delegate all of the more mundane tasks of managing your war machine to the computer. As it stands, I wouldn’t recommend using the simulation part of the game. Not just because of the arcade aspect, but there seems to be a lot of bugs. I couldn’t launch any type of weapon without a crash, the only work-around was not to use it. It won’t be missed as the 3D tactical battles are good enough until it’s patched.

 

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8488/shot0005zc0.jpg

 

There are many things in this review I did not cover, because of the immense size and nature of the game. I’m still discovering things and I’m sure there are things that I missed. One thing I suggest is that you run through the tutorials BEFORE you read the manual, which is very well done by the way. Trust me, things will be much clearer if you do. This is an interesting title, with plenty of potential. The seamless combination of the various genres works very well.

 

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/898/shot0028ud4.jpg

 

You could begin to think, “Why couldn’t other strategy/war games look like thisâ€

Edited November 8, 2006 by Cain

[Mad78]

Could be good... I have to see what the other reviews say about it.

[Cain]

Could be good... I have to see what the other reviews say about it.

 

Really? So you play SW Rebellion because you've seen good reviews?

[JediHunter]

wow... that looks like a pretty nice game there... question though... what are the system specs for this game?

[SOCL]

Forgive my ignorance (and misunderstanding), but is this a true game or a mod?

[Cain]

Real game mate: http://pff.swrebellion.com/index.php?board=35.0

 

Done by a russian developer.

 

Here are the specs:

 

2. System Requirements

 

Minimal System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000/XP

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 1700 MHz or similar

RAM: 512 Мб

Video: DirectX 9-compatible 3D accelerator with 64Mb of video memory

(NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or ATI Radeon 9200)

Peripherals: Keyboard, mouse

DirectX: 9.0C or higher

Sound: any DirectX-compatible sound card

 

 

Recommended System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000/XP

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2400 MHz and higher

RAM: 768 Mb or higher

Video: 3D accelerator with 128 Mb of video memory

(NVIDIA GeForce FX5600 or ATI Radeon and higher)

Peripherals: Keyboard, mouse, joystick

DirectX: 9.0C or higher

Sound: any DirectX-compatible sound card

[Cain]

Got this - enjoy:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-vcd-NaouQ

[SOCL]

Got this - enjoy:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-vcd-NaouQ

This looks awesome! Did they use the same engine as RTW?

[Cain]

Got this - enjoy:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-vcd-NaouQ

This looks awesome! Did they use the same engine as RTW?

 

Nope - they used OGRE.

[tacoJoemeru]

So.... Would you say its worth buying Cain?

[Eagle]

Wow! This looks pretty awesome!

 

I love games with lots of micro-management. I can´t show it to a friend or he will become addicted immediatly.This vid is very cool too.

[DarthTofu]

As someone who is still impressed by the original graphics for Rebellion (I respect people who can use paint-like-programs to make stuff that good) I'm not really a graphics whore. These graphics are, however, stupendous, and I've been waiting for a game that could do this sort of thing for a long time.

 

My dream is still to develop a MORPG with the differant positions on a ship .(As in Star Wars ships) IE one guy is the gunner, one the direction control, one the tactics control, etc. And no, ships would not have individual folks on the gunner positions.

[Cain]

DarthTofu you can control most of the AA positions in any ship or plane here The Slailors, Captains, Soldiers, Engineers and main characters get experience and have moral here too.

 

Damaged ships need to be fixed in a base and you can upgrade units, research and load what ammo you need. It’s very complex.

 

Intros:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UViRyFoRLYw

 

Fan Movies:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-vcd-NaouQ

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqRFruD6_08&NR

 

PS. Too bad that it is not a full sim but check this IL2 Sim Fan Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5tQWFjwwcs. Still PS is good enough for me though.

 

As for buying the game ... well I got it:

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/Cain2/Pacific%20Storm/PSBox3.jpg

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/Cain2/Pacific%20Storm/PSBox2.jpg

 

Still in december we will have beta-testing for the standalone expansion that is basically a gold - early 2007.

 

So if you are not a desperate fan of true hardcore RTS - with a learning curve nasty like Rebellion you can wait until PSA - because the Pacific Storm Allies is a must have.

 

Here is the hit location to be implemented in Allies (I taken the pics at the last convention):

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/Cain2/Pacific%20Storm/hitlocation.jpg

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/Cain2/Pacific%20Storm/checkingthenewhitsystem.jpg

 

So it's up to you guys to decide if you want to buy only the expansion or buy the game now too. Until then you may want to chat about the PS and better decide.

 

http://pff.swrebellion.com/index.php?board=35.0

[Darth_Rob]

Cain, I haven't seen you around in forever, then you magically appear bringing news of this game. It does look pretty sweet.

[Mad78]

I have to try/buy this game.

[Cain]

Mad78 you can wait for the standalone expansion in 2007 march - if you don't feel eager to put your hands on it right now

 

Darth_Rob I'm on pff.swrebellion.com - same server mate

 

PS still has some bugs. The PSA expansion has almost none. Anyway this game is moddable and we have 100% acces to the devs. They are even willing to promote great mods as expansions and pay for them.

 

Because they made it so realistic a peral harbor attack with max settings ... has the FPS cut in half pretty anoying. Plus those US heavy bombers are a pain in the butt.

[Mad78]

I have to give it a try and see how moddable it would be... Maybe a SW mod.