This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Chuck Landry.

In my less than humble opinion, there are two game genres that, for the past four or five years, have completely oversaturated the market to the point that I immediately roll my eyes at the prospect of playing their latest entries: WWII-based first person shooters and WWII-based RTS games. I often mistakenly say that the WWII era is a horse beaten well past death in the videogame arena. My initial gag reflex at the sound of Heroes of the Pacific subsided long enough for me to realize that, wait – we haven’t actually had all that many flight games based on WWII. 

Heroes of the Pacific does indeed span the timeframe of the second Great War, but you won’t be commanding tanks and infantry or shooting Nazis in this one. You play as William Crowe, ace fighter pilot who joins the Navy with his brother, Charlie, in the footsteps of his ex-Air Force pilot father. You’ll play through 30 some-odd levels spanning the conflict in Eastern Asia and fought above the Pacific Ocean. So you’ll be shooting more Japs than Nazis, which is in itself a welcome twist from the normal crop of games. The old philosophy that “Germans and zombies are the best game enemies” is finally ignored in Heroes of the Pacific.

The conflict with the Japanese which began with Pearl Harbor is retold in Heroes of the Pacific. While you certainly shouldn’t trade in your history books for a controller, it is reasonably accurate in its details concerning the battles. You’ll fly in dogfights above several real-world locations (mainly various islands in the Pacific) in actual planes used by the U.S. Navy. Your planes can also be upgraded using points that you can earn for accuracy and kills during the campaign mode. In addition to the campaign (which has four difficulty settings), you can go online for a hectic battle, play split screen with a friend, skirmish, or play some historic battles if you’ve unlocked them during the campaign.

Heroes of the Pacific may have real-life planes like the Corsair and Zeros, but in its core you’ll find the gameplay is all about arcade-style. The default controls give you a feeling you might find familiar if you’ve played Factor 5’s Rogue Squadron titles, albeit slightly looser. You’ll be shooting bogeys out of the sky in no time due to a simple targeting interface that highlights the suggested target and can easily be switched to the closest enemy with the press of a button. For those of you who want the game to have a slightly more sim feel to it, you can put the controls on “Professional,” which makes flying much more difficult (although still not complicated). The biggest difference is that in this control scheme you control your yaw (basic facing left or right) with the right analog stick, while roll and pitch is controlled on the left.

Come to think of it… if  “yaw” isn’t the correct term you can blame my editors. You may be surprised to learn that I don’t actually have my pilot’s license.

Anyway, splashing enemy bogeys is pretty simple and doesn’t take too many bullets, making combat very satisfying when things get heated. Eventually you will get some wingmen to order around like younger siblings. With your D-pad you can get them to fly in formation, attack a target, defend a target, or simply break and do their own thing. Most missions have you doing the expected “destroy all enemy planes” or “defend this base from the invasion” tasks, things are mixed up by giving you the controls of not only fighters, but also diver bombers to perform bombing raids on ships, or torpedo planes – a whole new dynamic appears when you must fly low enough to drop a torpedo in the water. In the end, there are about 35 planes from the U.S., Japan, and some of the other powers included in the game.

These dogfights look the best when you’re either high up in the clouds or breaking low and fast above the ocean. Clouds in the sky look superbly thick and voluminous. They have a definite shape and actually float around in the sky rather than simply being a far-off background image or simply a “layer” that you can fly above as in most flight games. The artists at IR Gurus really has their smoke effects down between the fluffy clouds and the hellish image that results from a plane taking one too many hits. Pieces fly off in ashy arches, and dirty, brown smoke swirls off in trails and funnels downwards with the larger chunks of engine. The water is also a gorgeous blue that is pretty convincing from a distance, although admittedly you can see some obvious patterns in it when you’re a bit closer. Still, the splash effects that pop up from the surface when you pepper the water with machine gun fire more than makes up for that.

Also, Heroes of the Pacific scores some extra presentation points for the propaganda pamphlet look it sports. “Our boys are out there fighting – Don’t let them down!” Ohh… I miss the 1940’s. This is where comic books got their roots.

My major criticisms of Heroes of the Pacific result from it both too easy and too hard in some ways, but for the wrong reasons. For instance, when you stall your engine at above the clouds and have some trouble getting things under control – so much so that your plane smacks down into the ground belly up – you should not be able to bounce off the ground and fly away with little more trouble than a smoking engine. Even though that didn’t always happen, the fact that I pulled that off twice during my review is a bit too often. And apparently colliding with a plane going in the opposite direction is not - as previously believed – a big deal.

On the other hand, the targeting system is great but only when it works. For the most part, the game highlights and points the way towards the next enemy objective. Once you destroy, let’s say, the group of enemy bombers, the game leaves you without a target for a few seconds while it queues up the next development (such as a new group of Zeros coming in from the East). Although there may be several bogeys left in the area, they aren’t pointed towards as the objectives are because you don’t need to destroy them to beat the level. But too often I found myself on the receiving end of a near-devastating barrage of bullets only to not be able to locate the source of said .40 caliber bullets. Even pressing the “switch to nearest enemy” button refused to cooperate, and that resulted in some frustrating moments.

I actually started the training levels with the Professional control scheme and learned to fly the hard way. Even the training missions seemed shockingly difficult for me – especially shooting stationary targets and flying through rings. With a little persistence I got the hang of things, but somewhere around the fifth level I decided to try the Arcade controls. Stick with Arcade. This game may give you the choice, but believe you me, it was without a doubt designed to assume you’re flying with Arcade controls. Otherwise, turning from side to side is simply impossible to do efficiently and accurately.

The sound effects are definitely a mixed bag. None of them are outstanding, but the sound of getting hit with .50 caliber machine guns has an almost painful depth. On the other hand, most of the planes sound like old Volkswagens.

Finally, I had some high hopes for a dogfighting game that chooses as its opening level the attack on Pearl Harbor. The graphics are great as far as combat goes. Bullets crack into the camera’s virtual screen, blood splatters on the glass, and the black, gloomy smoke effects that spill out of damaged craft is excellent. Still, I felt that for Pearl Harbor, the level was a little underwhelming. That feeling continued on throughout the campaign mode. Don’t get me wrong – the combat is all about instant gratification and it is pleasurable, but I expected more planes… more chaos… more something. Also, to be fair, feel free to check other people’s opinions about this as I seem to be the minority vote on this subject. Maybe my expectations were too high, but it would’ve been a great visual treat to see planes trailing downward in spirals of smoke everywhere you turn.

Questionable physics (gravity + giant hunk of metal + ground = bounce and takeoff ?) and personal petty gripes aside, Heroes of the Pacific is a good time. In fact, it’s probably one of the last good times you’re going to squeeze out of your Xbox before the 360 comes around next month. It’s fair to think of it as the WWII version of Rogue Squadron, and if there’s a little bit of historical fact worked in the cracks somewhere, who am I to complain? If you like your dogfights fast and furious you owe this game a play test. The verdict: Heroes of the Pacific isn’t perfect but it’s close enough for government work and the result is the most enjoyable dogfight you’re likely to see on the current Xbox.

Stick to Arcade controls and you’ll be fine, aside from some strange targeting issues.

Impressive smoke effects, plane models, and water – where it counts. Not so for the land below.

Impact sounds are believable, but the engine sounds are less than impressive.

I like that it’s easy to pick up and jump into a dogfight, but I do wish there was simply more

You won’t go back to campaign, but you’re covered with online, skirmish, and historical mission