1942: PACIFIC AIR WAR by Microprose

Reviewed by Bill Cranston

Overview

1942 Pacific Air War (1942) is the eagerly-awaited release by Microprose recounting the exploits of the fleet commanders and pilots involved in the Pacific carrier operations of World War II. Combining beautiful graphics and a realistic flight model, 1942 promises to deliver the next level in flight sims.

Players have several different choices in playing 1942, from choosing amongst a series of single missions, to following the path of a pilot through a career, to taking the helm as an admiral commanding a task force in the south Pacific ocean. For all these choices, Japanese or American forces can be selected by the player to pilot or command.

Single Missions

These missions are broken down by mission type (Combat Air Patrol, Fighter Sweep, Bombing Run, Torpedo Ship) and are intended to familiarize the player with the many different facets of piloting the various planes featured in 1942. Becoming a proficient torpedo bomber will not mean much once you strap yourself into a fighter!

Once the player decides which mission to run, he is then brought to a briefing screen that displays in summary fashion the flight path of the mission and its objectives. Following this is the Armament screen that displays a default payload (usually extra fuel tanks as required or a set of bombs or a torpedo should you choose such a mission). This screen can basically be clicked by without much thought. Once your plane is armed and ready, you find yourself sitting in your cockpit going over your pre-flight checklist. This is where you decide how "hard" your mission will be by toggling the enemy pilot skill level, realistic flight model, and limited ammo among other things. The total difficulty factor is tallied at the top, and varies from 0 (if you choose training mode) to 3.0 (maximum lethality).

Finally, you're on the runway! Initially your view is on the dials of your plane, but this can easily be switched to a "heads-up" view through the front of the canopy, and to the standard left/right/back and external views. Don't be gazing for too long though, as your wingmen are busy getting airborne and you don't want to be left behind!

Once airborne and in formation (this can be taken care of by switching on the autopilot), the player can move to a map of the area of the Pacific ocean the mission takes place in and follow the flight of the planes as they proceed along their flight path. Time Acceleration can speed this process up substantially.

Eventually, the player will either reach the target or will be met by bandits, whichever comes first. At this point the game will dump the player back into the cockpit to deal with the present situation. Unless in training mode, leaving autopilot on will only result in the computer flying your plane for you, not defending it, so it is a good idea to take matters into your own hands.

From this point the player gets a good feel for the flight model present in 1942. As somewhat of a layman as far as flight sims are concerned, I can't attest to specific performance characteristics that others may detect as either correctly modeled or deficient (some have commented that inverted flight is not modeled correctly, and apparently spins are not modeled at all). However, I can say that it sure feels right to me! Knocking bogeys from the sky is much more difficult in 1942 than in any other flight sim I've played. Elements of flight such as engine torque, buffeting, and the effect of the sun are all modeled quite well in 1942.

Once the objective of the mission is completed, the player returns to home base and a post-mission briefing provides a summary rundown of the mission results. One thing to note in single missions is that if the plane you should be piloting gets shot down, you then jump into the cockpit of the next plane in your flight. You can also do this at any time during a mission through the press of a key. This is not available if you should choose to pursue a pilot career. You can also jump to the back seat in dive or torpedo bombers to man the rear machine gun in single missions, with the computer taking over piloting chores. Again, this cannot be done during a career since the career you are following is that of a pilot, not a tail gunner.

Career Pilot

After playing various single missions, the next logical move is to see how far you can make it through the war by choosing the career pilot option. For me unfortunately, this is where some weaknesses in 1942 begin to appear.

At times MPS flight sims have been criticized for always putting the player in a "you against the world" environment. Well, despite the fact that you have other planes alongside you, this feeling is still prevalent in 1942.

Flying missions as a career pilot is virtually identical to flying single missions, except that you now fly a string of them in one type of plane only (either a fighter, bomber, or torpedo plane). All sequences leading up to the beginning of each mission in a career are identical to what is seen during single missions.

What is lacking during a pilot's career from the player's point of view is a sense at all of actually being part of a squadron. The 1942 pre and post mission briefings leave many questions unanswered that any pilot should be made aware of prior to or discover after a mission has been completed.

In every pre-mission briefing, the player is only told that a convoy is somewhere out there and that you're to bomb it. That's it. We aren't told what ships we might expect to find, whether we're going to get escorts, how many of us will be going on the mission, and exactly who will be going on the mission. It never matters who is accompanying you, since the computer pilots do not vary in skill.

What's worse is that during some missions in a career the player will discover that he is suddenly taking off from a different carrier in a completely different task force! There is no mention of this anywhere during a pilot's career. This really kills any sense that you are taking part in a coherent campaign. Instead you fly through a series of missions that are only vaguely related chronologically.

As for the debrief itself, all the player is told is who in his flight (the 2 or 3 planes that the player formed part of) had air victories and if they bombed or strafed anything. No information is kept of the accomp- lishments of the other pilots who happened to fly the same mission. It would be far more interesting if we were informed of things like:

i) level of damage to pilots' planes (your mechanic is tight-lipped about how much damage your plane sustained).
ii) injuries to pilots (pilot injury is not considered in 1942).
iii) number of planes our tailgunners shot down or damaged (tailgunners are always anonymous).
iv) who shot down what planes, who bombed/torpedoed what targets, who had near misses, etc.

There is a Pilot Status screen that the player can click on that shows a list of 20 pilots other than yourself and what they have credit for shooting or destroying. Who exactly these pilots are is a mystery, since they don't appear to be only those pilots from your squadron. After you finish a mission, the stats for all these pilots are updated and, if you're inclined to, you can try and fathom what missions these guys were on. Many of the pilots will have been credited for destroying things that weren't even present in the mission you just flew. Who are these guys!?

Another disturbing sign concerning missions in a pilot's career is that only planes that are needed to complete a mission are assigned to it. For instance, no flight of torpedo bombers ever flew towards a convoy without a fighter escort, yet in 1942 this is precisely what happens whenever the convoy consists of nothing more than transports. This isn't terribly realistic, since commanders never really knew for sure ahead of time what they were sending their planes off to strike.

As a result of this, if you ever start a mission without a fighter escort then you can be sure that you won't be bounced by a flight of enemy fighters at any time during the mission. Similarly, a mission consisting of only 1 flight of unescorted torpedo bombers usually means a strike against a convoy without much AA protection (helpless TRs in other words).

For those individuals who just want a good flight model with great graphics, then 1942 certainly delivers. However, 1942 tries to be more than that in attempting to simulate carrier operations in general. In this regard, much improvement is necessary in how pilots and mission assignments are handled.

Carrier Battle

The strategic element of carrier operations is simulated very elegantly and cleanly in the Carrier Battle option. Via this option the player has the opportunity to fill the boots of Admiral Nimitz or Yamamoto by taking control of an entire task group in any of the 5 major Pacific carrier battles of World War II. The player can also set various realism settings such as accurate/inaccurate battle reports, weather effects, and random or historical set-up to spice things up. This adds greatly to the replay- ability of carrier battles. Players can also jump in to any strike that they launch as well, effectively creating a single mission to play.

Carrier battles are played out on a map screen very similar to the map screen displayed when you are piloting a plane, except the map during a carrier battle covers more area. It is from this screen that the player carries out all the major functions that an Admiral had to be concerned with - launching searches, CAP, strikes, and direction and speed of the task group. Success will require the admiral to be able to balance all these functions, and to be lucky once in a while.

Though not as detailed as Carriers At War, the Carrier Battles option presents a very good overview of carrier operations in the Pacific during this period of history, and is loads of fun.

Other Options

1. Custom Missions

One of the many things 1942 allows you to do is build your own missions from scratch, or edit one of the many existing missions. The mission builder allows you to create missions that contain all of the elements that are evident in the missions that were included in 1942. As of this writing, I have not had time to experiment with this option, so I cannot describe more fully its capabilities. One thing I have noticed is that there is a limit of 16 planes total that can be in one mission.

2. Film Replay

Although a bit confusing at first, the film replay feature is really quite a powerful and flexible tool in 1942. Missions are automatically recorded from the moment the player takes off to the moment he lands (or crashes). The player can review a mission in its entirety from any of the available camera angles, and can also step in to relive the mission at any time. In addition, portions of the film can be edited to change the camera angles and these changes can be saved in order to produce a more cinematic replay of a mission.

Miscellaneous

1. SOUND

Many people have complained about the lack of sound effects in 1942. I find that there are enough sound effects, but that they are just not loud enough. Maybe the guys responsible at MPS should have a look at RAPTOR! There are some sound samples missing though, such as when another plane passes close by you. As of this release of 1942, other planes are perfectly quiet. The source of most peoples' gripes, however, rest with the sound of the machine guns. Any choice of simile will do in describing how "tinny" they sound. Whether you are firing 2 7.7mm machine guns or a combination of machine gun and cannon fire, the same tinny sound is produced.

2. GRAPHICS

Beautiful stuff here. Ships do seem to be a bit small, and carriers seem to be both too short and too narrow. Overall though, this is the prettiest flight sim I've ever seen. Nothing like watching the sun rise as your flight of bombers flies towards that unsuspecting convoy...

3. COMPUTER AI

Enemy pilots are tough enough for me without setting their skill level to the difficult setting. Now if only tail gunners were as proficient. In this release of 1942, Japanese tail gunners do not seem to be nearly as active as US tail gunners. In fact, I've never seen a Japanese tail gunner fire a shot when I'm piloting a Japanese bomber.

Another curious observation is how well-synchronized the computer- controlled planes are in their flight patterns. When approaching a bombing run, planes will line up in perfect order and drop their payloads at the exact same time, at the exact same height and altitude. Wish I could say the same thing about my own approaches. Coupled with the lack of infor- mation on the other members of your squadron, this only adds to the feeling that you're on your own up there.

Lastly, computer pilots do not know how to strafe! When so instructed in a given mission, fighter pilots will instead begin a dive-bomb run. This looks ridiculous in F6Fs with no payload under their wings.

4. MANUALS

Good manuals are in short supply these days. The manuals (you get two) that come with 1942 explain well the material they cover, but they leave a lot out that could certainly help the player understand the game better. For instance, nowhere is there an explanation of the different ranks a pilot can be promoted to, what new responsibilities the player will have to face as a result of a higher rank (if any), or what medals you could be awarded. Also, information on the various planes do not include their operational ranges, nor to what extent external drop tanks extend the range of planes. This is important when designing your own missions.

There also lacks any information on the types of ships a pilot is expected to strike. Though I can distinguish between a carrier and a transport, I'd like to know what the tell-tale marks are to spot a battleship among a group of heavy cruisers. There is no information on the types of AA defences the various types of ships have either. Deck-mounted machine guns do not seem to exist among any ships I've skimmed over.

Conclusions

Overall this is a fine product. I guess when such a product comes out, you can't help but pine for the little improvements that would make a good game great. 1942 offers so many choices that there is bound to be something to suit nearly everyone's tastes, just make sure you have the hardware to run it.