Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies reviews

A sort of chess game evolved in an aviation context, with an evolution of the RPG-like squadrille! Of reflection, of the trick and the good exploitation of his forces and his weaknesses are necessary to emerge victorious from the various missions (for little that one climbs the difficulty, of course). Graphically correct, the game is placed in the world of burnt heads: take a seat, Commander Boyington, and shoot me these Japanese zeros!

A game that pleasantly surprised me but that unfortunately does not hold the distance. Tactically it's pretty well done. The constraints on maneuvering make that there is a real reflection on each commitment. The campaigns offer a real sensation of progression: the pilots improve over the missions by learning new manoeuvres, the unblocked planes are few but sufficiently typed for the choice to be important and the levels of difficulty will allow everyone to enjoy themselves. The problem is that you quickly feel like you are doing the same thing again. Compared to the tactical lap-by-turn land where the terrain brings a great variety, here the few tactical elements, namely clouds and DCA, harms the durability of gaming fun. Especially since these are not big battles engaging entire wings until exhaustion but short skirmishes to 1 to 3 against 2 to 4. Anyway, it's short!

Overall identical to the first opus, Pacific skies presents itself rather as a stand alone than a true continuation of the license and does not justify a purchase at a high price. Although it is always a question of leading his squadron to the front in order to achieve sometimes very specific objectives (escort, interception, bombardment,...) the gameplay remains substantially the same as in the first, we will regret the fact that no new manoeuvres or figures were added, worse, some of the previous Opus have been removed from the game. We always have the choice between 4 faction to complete the campaign but here the choice stops at army or Navy American and army or Japanese Navy (only models of devices available differentiates armed and marine) personally I regret this choice, I would have preferred a similar model to ACE patrol's first name (either a USA; France England and Germany) but hey, the game is called Pacific skies, so Pacific forces, it will be US or Jap! The game remains however correct and has lost nothing of its addictive side (the model lap by lap being there for many). In summary this Pacific skies is an ACE patrol whose only novelty lies in the 39-45 context, but it stops there unfortunately. So I advice for the absolute fan of the first episode, if you like the "war in the tropics" framework and for all the others I recommend rather classic ACE patrol (more complete at any level).