Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII Review [XBox 360]

rating:3

We've been here before - a flight-combat-sim attempting to transcend the limitations and community perception of the genre which has largely been relegated to a very secondary concern to grounded combat franchises. In order to address that manifesto the game promised historical accuracy and authentic dog-fights, as well as a comparatively huge 12 hours of campaign play, but really the game is most successful when considered as a more disposable arcade experience. The conscious high-lighting of authenticity and precision don't sit very well with the gameplay experience, which is limited and unvaried, played out on an uninspiring backdrop of largely uninteresting landscapes, but which still packs a good deal of disposable fun into its many dogfights. And though the gameplay features a variety of activities designed to test your skills as a pilot and add some authenticity to the WWII fighter pilot experience, including bombing, reconnaissance and landing on aircraft carriers, the best part of your gaming time is spent in dogfights, shooting down faceless enemies with unlimited ammo. That might not sound like much fun, but it surprisingly is, despite the lack of any real challenge from the enemy planes who seem almost comically inept at shooting you down. There is limited tactical prowess needed, with the gameplay valuing a good aim over everything else, and you can't really feel emotionally invested in the story, despite its attempts at historical accuracy and some nice-looking presentation tying missions together, but it's still good enough fun to divert. After all, we've all spent countless hours shooting down Asteroids and Space Invaders without the frills of modern FPS games; those combat experiences aren't less rich for the want and Pacific Squadron WWII has a similar simple appeal. Everything seems geared towards ease, and as much dogfight-based combat as possible: the maps are easily plotted with a radar system, and enemies are marked in red to keep you from straying too far away from the action, and there's little to really test your flying skills with the controller that would threaten to take focus away from that combat. That extends to the gun-heat system, which is supposed to limit your fire-power to conceive bursts, but which isn't restricted enough to really affect how you fire, and it's all very easy. But that all changes, for the better with the switch to the other available controller option. There is something to be said for the gaming nostalgia of the joy-stick experience, and thanks to the collector's edition, Damage Inc offers a trip back to those simpler, but actually much harder times with a well designed bespoke controller that is perfectly responsive and takes a lot more thought to use than you might expect. It also ramps up the difficulty level, requiring far more precise movements to target enemy crafts than the traditional controller, and changing the gameplay dynamic in which the player feels largely invulnerable into a far more complex and irresistibly frustrating affair. It's just a shame the game couldn't offer a little more for the excellent hardware to show off, because as it is, Pacific Squadron WWII feels a little too much like a literal and limiting realisation of publisher Mad Catz' conscious agenda to concentrate on games that show off their peripherals. And too few people are going to buy a middling game for the chance to play with an excellent joy-stick, especially at over £70 for the luxury. The multiplayer section of the game offers a little more, with a number of modes including four-way Co-Op and versus and dogfight modes, which bring in human-on-human gameplay and a far more relevant sense of danger. But sadly, despite the disposable arcade fun of the campaign, and the pleasures of the multiplayer, the game still feels like a missed opportunity for Mad Catz to show off their hardware with a more appropriate quality of game. Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII is available to buy now.