Aces of the Pacific

Aces of the Pacific is a combat flight simulator game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1992. The game takes place during World War II. Player can choose single or instant mission, or choose to take a career path in United States Army Air Forces, United States Navy, United States Marines, Imperial Japanese Army or Imperial Japanese Navy. Its success caused Dynamix to create a very similar follow-up Aces Over Europe in 1993.

Aces of the Pacific
Aces of the Pacific Coverart.png
Developer(s) Dynamix
Publisher(s) Sierra Entertainment
Platform(s) DOS, Amiga,[1]
Release 1992
Genre(s) Combat flight simulator
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
Gameplay Edit

Aces of the Pacific features various warplanes of the era, such as the F6F Hellcat and the Zero. The game includes historical missions, should the player choose to play them during the course of their career or as a single mission. Historical missions include the Japanese Navy's surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor, defense of Pearl Harbor by a handful of Army Air Corps P-40 Warhawks based at Wheeler Field, fighter/bomber combat during the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Battle of Coral Sea, and the mission to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after deciphering Japanese messages of his scheduled plans to visit island bases.

Numerous World War II aces make an appearance in the game, and the player can fly either with them or against them through the course of his or her career. Dick Bong, Thomas McGuire, David McCampbell, Joe Foss, and Pappy Boyington are some of the American aces that appear in the game. Accomplished aces of the Imperial Japanese Navy such as Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Tetsuzo Iwamoto, and Saburo Sakai also take to the skies of the Pacific.

If the 1946 Expansion Pack is installed, at the end of the war, the player may choose to continue in an alternate history in which atomic bombs were never used on Japan. The game calls the campaign Operation Coronet, the planned invasion of Japan. This extra campaign contains numerous prototype aircraft that were developed before the war's end but never saw combat in World War II.

Reception Edit

Computer Gaming World's Doug Fick in September 1992 called Aces of the Pacific "simultaneously awesome and disappointing." The reviewer praised the graphics, documentation, and gameplay, but found that even a fast computer could not run the software with sufficient performance, the AI enemies and sound were inferior to those of Red Baron, and that aircraft performance was unrealistic. He concluded that "Aces of the Pacific is 80% 'battle-ready'" and hoped that the developer would "provide that extra 20%."[2] In December, Fick reported that Dynamix had significantly improved performance without sacrificing graphics, and also improved opponents' AI, sound, and aircraft realism. He concluded that "as updated, Aces of the Pacific lives up to its tremendous advanced billing and is now superior to Red Baron."[3] In March 1993 Fick reported that he enjoyed the WWII: 1946 expansion disk, but wished that it included a mission builder as with Red Baron. He concluded that "It serves as a nice addition ... but is not essential".[4] A 1993 wargame survey by the magazine gave the game four stars out of five, calling it "the flight simulator of World War II".[5] The game received 5 out of 5 stars in Dragon.[6]

In 1994 PC Gamer US named Aces of the Pacific the 12th best computer game ever. The editors wrote, "With its unsurpassed variety of aircraft and mission types, Aces of the Pacific may well be the most gratifying air-combat simulation ever made."[7] In 1996 Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 47th best game of all time, for setting "new standards for graphics and performance."[8] In 2003 IGN ranked it as the 92nd top game, stating: "Realism, aircraft, technology, multiplayer and many ways to kill many a folk made Aces of the Pacific an immediate hit. (...) Better flight sims have come and gone, but this was one of the first truly glorious ones and its brand is still burnt in our minds."[9]

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