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Looking forward to going feet wet!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: July 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Grumpy- your name says it all.

First off - how do you know I haven't played it? Many games use beta testers with signed NDA's.

Secondly - Considering the amount of quality flight simulators out there (which is almost nil) every good sim that comes out needs as much support as it can get - especially if it's as quality a product as those that come from 1:C Maddoc and Ubi-Soft.

Considering their past games - IL-2 and IL-2: Forgotten Battles - and knowing that this is based on the same engine with the same attention to detail, AND knowing the work first-hand by knowing some of their developers personally - trust me, it's going to be an amazing, fun, and challenging flight sim.

Anyone who has an interest in aviation games, flight sims, historical war theatres, and wants to know what it was like to fly a powerful warbird against tough odds without the benefit of impersonal guided missiles - PF and the IL-2 series are for you. It's realistic and accurate, giving you a taste of what it was like to fly in those intense dogfights and carrier raids.

Even if it was $50 (as opposed to $40) it'd still be a great buy. Definitely looking forward to this one.

============================

Oleg Maddox's crew seem to be on the verge of doing it yet again- this time in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. Now with carriers and maritime operations, the IL-2 series' world is getting opened up to whole new possibilities!

What's great is that, if you already own IL-2 Forgotten Battles and the Aces Expansion Pack, you have the option to install Pacific Fighers on TOP of that, as opposed to stand-alone. What this means, basically, is that you will be able to use all 200 or more flyable aircraft from IL-2 FB, the FB ACES expansion, AND Pacific Fighters within ONE simulator. I'm looking forward to some interesting online battles - Me-262's versus F4-U Corsairs, Val's versus Stukas, etc.

Out of the box, it includes something like 40 flyable aircaft and variants, some of which are:
* Flyable Japanese Aircraft: Zero, Ki-84, Aichi D3A1 Val, G4M2 Betty (and more)
* Flyable USA aircraft: F6F Hellcat, SBD Dauntless, and A-20 Havoc (and more)
* Flyable British aircraft: Supermarine Seafire (and more)

The newest aspect, of course, is carrier operations. Given the already difficult nature of landing high performance aircraft on LAND bases, I can only imagine how difficult it will be to put them down on a tiny, moving, swaying, rocking, and tilting carrier deck - under fire and with the wind blowing. I sense many a deck strike coming my way..

Makes high speed aerial combat look easy in comparison.

Why simulations are a niche product...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 14
Date: February 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I write this review out of frustration. I haven't dug deep enough in this game to get the most out of it and it's looking like I probably never will. From what I've experienced, it seems like a good enough simulation, but there is almost zero documentation to learn how to fly these fantastic old planes. Most of the games controls (many of which are very much needed) are left unbound by default, leaving you to come up with your own configuration. And, since I know very little about aviation of the era, I have no idea what half the stuff does. There are very few pre-built training missions to fly, and the ones there are have shallow briefings which don't explain what is expected of you or how to do it. There is no information on military tactics and procedures. Most of the thin manual is written with the dry, condescending wit of a cranky old grognard, with little actual substance.

The end result is that I want to love this game, but I just can't. Simulations have been increasingly sparse, and games like this are exactly why. You can't expect anyone new to jump in to the genre when it's so cold to outsiders.

Hopelessly incomplete

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 14
Date: September 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

OK, I've waited until patch after patch, listened to the people saying that 1C gives more than expected in continued product support, but now I have to rate this.

Pacific fighters is exactly what one expects ,, simply an add-on for their russian front game. It adds "Pacific fighters" to the eastern front struggle, with the added bonus of limited carrier operations.

That is also what's wrong with this product. Advertised as a stand alone game, it doesn't have the aircraft, ships, or terrain to recreate even a single battle historically. Pearl Harbor is "simulated" by using british or russian battleships, anchored along aan "Oahu" with no diamond head, but you can't fly a Kate against them, in fact, you can't fly any carrier based torpedo planes! I'm not talking about just missing sub-types either, although those exist (F4F-3A?), but where are the late war japanese strike planes? Or the SB2C, the major dive bomber of the last two years? What about the TBD's at Midway? It can't be simulated, they don't exist, and neither do three of four kido butai carriers! As for ships, probably the critical aspect to simulating any pacific theater combat, you get an essex, a repainted essex, a pre-war Lexington, a cheesy knock off Saratoga, in an incorrect configuration for any period, and an escort carrier in two paint schemes. Missing are all US battleships, all but one US cruiser, and all japanese cruisers and battleships. Japanese carriers are shorted as well, with a zuikaku class, and an Akagi, that's it! How can you release a pacific theater game without the Enterprise? Really, who wouldn't notice?

Terrain is also poorly, almost insultingly done, no slot, no Phillipines, no Java area, and Oahu has already been covered as a poor representation.

On top of all that is missing, one must wonder about the vaunted flight modeling, when an A6M2 zero outruns an F6F-5 in level flight. Radial engine planes suffer catastrophic engine damage, while the inlines seem invulnerable.

Also completely missing is weather. Oh, be sure, you can select varying levels of single layer cloud cover, but wind makes an appearance in only the heaviest overcast, and only as some sort of turbulence factor, no where is it singly selectable, nor are speeds and directions at altitude configurable. That makes what few opportunities for carrier operations exist limited to the speed the ships can generate. I've heard the developers' sycophants tell me that "is plane game, not weather or ship game" but it still feels like a tank sim done in a parking lot. Add to that, the AI (which isn't very I) doesn't use the adverse effects of clouds and darkness, they have super-vision that sees through those.

I wonder if the combination of a russian developer, and a french distributor will ever make for good gameplay in a simulator focused on a singularly american theater.

I've had it, really, and if I could return this thing I would. Rest assured Maddox' games upcoming Battle of Britain won't be on my hard drive. If not for what will undoubtedly be poor execution and gameplay, then for the copy protection, that makes running the game a real gamble, and introduces the possibility of actually damaging your hardware..(google "Starforce", "Securom")

Pass it by.....unless you are one of the "Air Quake" sycophants that seem to rabidly enjoy this stuff....re-spawn indeed...

IL2 Pacific Fighters.....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In the tradition of IL2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles and The Aces Expansion Pack, Pacific Fighters takes the high quality that 1C has become famous for in the flight sim community and transfers that to the Pacific Theater. Pacific Fighters can be run as a standalone sim or as a merged installation with the previous IL2 Forgotten Battles and The Forgotten Battles Aces Expansion Pack (It is NOT compatible with the original IL2). While as a stand alone sim Pacific Fighters will only serve to whet your appetite... as a merged sim with the other two afore mentioned titles (Both can be had in one package with the Forgotten Battles GOLD edition) it is indeed a force to be reconed with and hands dow the absolute best WW2 Air Combat simulator on the market to date..... bar NONE. Stunning graphics, high scalability, great flight and damage models and a very involved communitymake this sim along with it's prdecessors for the merged installation a MUST.

History Buff

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: February 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a pilot and WWII History fanatic, I found this sim extremely fun and exciting (especially when married with the IL2 AEP-FB packages). I think the flight model is pretty good, though I think the high speed stalls are a little exaggerated. This is by-far the best WWII flight sim I've found in terms of detail, number of aircraft types (and varients) available to fly and fight against, and over-all realism. Looking forward to further expansion of the series.

Unfinished release, wait for the finished product

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 25
Date: February 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

They made their release deadline, but at what cost?

You have to get a patch just to get started, then some of the area maps are missing, {how can you attack Pearl Harbor when it's not there?}, some aircraft they said you could fly,... well... you can't, and the patches are already up to 3.4 and megabytes of fixes...... maybe they'll come out with the finished version sometime.... otherwise buy it for $0.01 and find patches online, just to see the intro!

Terrific fun at any difficulty level

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: April 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'd direct your attention to the review by Oesau, below. Very balanced and spot-on. I enjoy the game very much, and look forward to a flight or two each evening.

I don't understand some of the criticisms, here. Pacific Fighters is not arcade-like at all. The player has full control of many, many settings for difficulty and complexity. You can make it as challenging as you like. Even at simpler settings, it's not easy. I've played it for hundreds of hours, and landing on the carriers is still pretty tough for me. Do-able, but tough, and very satisfying.

I gave it 4 stars overall, and I'll tell you why. The documentation is pretty slim. The Readme files on the basic install and with the patches are critical, and still not complete. For instance, the Readme mentions how to pull the wheel chocks, but it nowhere mentions that they are in place at the beginning of every carrier-based mission, and they do not appear on the external views of your aircraft. You can sit there all day at full throttle, and you're not going to move until you pull them. Considering how much enjoyment I get from this game, that is a fairly minor aggravation, but the online communities are very important for getting past "newbie" questions like that. The forums at UbiSoft and SimHQ are full of people who are very helpful, even when answering the same question over and over from new owners of the game.

It does take a fairly powerful machine to run it. The faster your machine is, the more intense will be the feeling that "you are there." The artificial intelligence of the enemy pilots is pretty decent, too. I've been impressed several times at the "imagination" shown by a computerized enemy as they clobbered me.

Bring your patience and get this game. You'll be very well pleased.

a waste of time

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 26
Date: April 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this is probably the second worst flight simulator ever designed. Beaufighters and a-20's fly into mountains, the USMC on Guadalcanal fly P-39's and later P-47's. You can fly corsairs and hellcats, but only to practice carrier take-offs and landings... In general, this game is a waste of time if you want any sort of historical accuracy or playability.

Let the buyer beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: April 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My advice to anyone who is interested in buying this game is to wait until it hits the bargin rack. In my case the game refused to load, the program would not recognize either of the cds. The label states the game contains technology to prevent copying which may conflict with some drives. Believe it! The ubisoft support page requires you to provide lots of personal information in order to be told that the problem is with your computer, perish the thought that there would be anything wrong with their software.

Awsome Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: May 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pacific fighters installed with AEP+FB(ace extension pack and forgotten battles)...is awsome!. I hghly recomond the joint installation of the 3 games! AEP+FB+PF...and for such a low price.I must have for all simlulation-plane lovers.

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