Release Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Matrix Games
Developer: 2by3 Games
Reviewed by: John Siminoff
Overview
War in the Pacific, a turn-based WWII simulation concentrating solely on the war between the Allies and the Empire of Japan (the map range is from Karachi, Pakistan to Denver, Colorado, including essentially both poles) is probably one of the most overwhelmingly detailed war games you are ever likely to encounter. The scale is sixty-mile hexes with controls for individual ship, plane and land units as small as brigades for any nation whose units participated in the Pacific War in anything more than an oddball way. The player may play as either the Allies or Japan, with the opposite side being played either by another human via hotseat/PBEM or AI. Scenarios range from famous battles within the wider war up to the all-out throw down. The game covers from a few seconds after the first Japanese bombs strike Pearl to 1946, should the war continue to this length.
Stability/Hardware
The game is quite stable, and will run on most systems so long as they are even remotely current (This reviewer has run it on as small as a 1 megahertz celeron notebook with 128 megs of RAM with onboard video). WiTP uses a very simple graphical interface and sound structure, so that even very low end hardware will run this game. The game?s producers, Matrix Games, offer superb support and frequently patch issues to reflect all but the most insignificant problems.
Historical Authenticity
A dedicated WWII history buff may learn things from this game. All details are accurate for ships and planes down to specific versions of AA guns, number of depth charge launchers, speeds, number of floatplanes on a particular model of cruiser, a plane?s version (B-17C vs B-17E), American dud torpedoes, low rates of Japanese pilot replacement, etc. Almost no conceivable detail is omitted from its unit information on land, sea or air. Real leaders are represented throughout the game on both sides, with ratings such as inspiration and leadership ability.
Game Features
One almost hesitates to call this a game. It is truly a simulation of the war, to the best of the ability of the hardware in question to represent. If you are a casual player of war games (you like Risk and wish Starcraft was still current), you will NOT like this game. The turns take several minutes to process (each can be set to a single DAY of WWII) even on a fast system. A casual player will be bored to tears setting up the logistical support required for even a small assault on an enemy island or trying to figure out where the replacement planes for the 5th Fighter wing are and what the best way to get them to their current location might be.
More importantly, this simulation is true to the facts on the ground as they were in those theatres. Production and supply realities on both sides will restrict various operations or the deployment of new units. The Allied player cannot much vary his production (which tends to be quite plentiful in any case), but the Japanese player has control over the production of various airplanes and ships than most previous games would allow. That being said, production controls are not easy to understand and are one of the aspects the game?s creators may significantly patch in the future.
In so far as combat, outcomes are generally very realistic in the skies and in the seas. Ships do not often sink in five minutes. You will often take weeks of game time until intelligence finally discovers if that crippled cruiser got away. Fog of war may have your enemy thinking he put five bombs into the Yorktown while it took but one hit. Ten five hundred pound general purpose bombs will not much harm a Yamato class battle ship, even though your bombers will come back and tell you they plastered it. I actually found it quite entertaining to see the weapons and realities so realistically portrayed. Wonder why everyone was so scared of the Yamato? Well try to stop a battleship of its armor and size with anything short of a perfect wolfpack ambush or a hundred plane carrier alpha strike and see what you can do to it.
Land combat is adequately represented, but is the least satisfying of the three types. It is abstractly represented and while detailed enough to do its job, at times you will wonder precisely how that overland movement speed or combat result was calculated. This being said, since there was very little overland maneuver combat in this part of the war, and since small island and siege type fighting
