War in the Pacific

by Matrix

Product Details

• ASIN: B000E6MILY
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,276 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

The War At Sea - Besides critical hit locations for all weapons platforms and any radar installations, individual armor locations and a wealth of performance and characteristics data, each ship's crew has an experience rating for day and night combat. Every ship from mighty carriers and battleships down to gun boats has a commander with his own strengths and weaknesses. The game includes thousands of ships chosen from over 300 ship classes. There are 15 campaigns included with the game, which can be played against the computer opponent, hot seat, by secure email. War in the Pacific now gives you the chance to fight the entire war your way on every level. Political Points - Some troops are restricted in deployment. Australian troops must be release from home defense, for instance, before they can be shipped off to fight in New Guinea. And, Admirals can't be everywhere, at once. Each day, each player accumulates political points which can be used to reassign assets to the various headquarters or to change leaders.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Monster Board Wargame of the 1970's is alive and well...., March 8, 2006

By 

K. Patton "K. Patton" (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: War in the Pacific (CD-ROM)

If you are a war gamer and are old enough to remember and love the old monster wargames of the 1970's and 80's you will love this computer game. If you grew up on first person shooters, never walked to school or have never been to a school without air conditioning, you will probably hate it. In any case, your attention span has probably prevented you from reading this far anyway.

This game is not for the attention challenged. It is the grand pacific war on an operational scale. It is for the Grognard, willing to take the time to meticulously plan operations, and who is satisfied with the reward of seeing it play out successfully or fail miserably. No colorful explosions, no noisy sound effects (they are there if you want them, mini animations, that in my humble opinion are a waste of time and CPU power).

This game runs on the same engine as it's smaller cousin, by the same developers, Uncommon Valor, covering the battles of the South West Pacific in the early years of the war. This baby covers the entire Pacific Theater. The attention to detail is meticulous, with weapons and equipment modeled down to Battalion level. If you are familiar with Grigsby's old Pacific War, this one takes it farther.

As the saying goes "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics." Well, logistics rule War in the Pacific. Ever wonder how the USN, Army and Marines pulled off an amphibious assault? You can find out. Stage and train your landing force, form an amphibous landing force composed of adequate sea lift, form Naval Combat Covering task forces, Shore bombardment task forces, Air Covering task forces, follow on Supply Convoys, then maybe, just maybe you will have enough men and supplies to take the island before attrition and lack of supply foil your efforts. If your covering forces don't withdraw prematurely or they aren't driven off and you are victorious, then you can send in the Construction Battalions to build or expand airstrips and port facilities. Then bring in the air squadrons to help secure air superiority. The if successful, well, then you start planning for the next one.
If the nuts and bolts of war interest you, then this is the game for you. While it might not be possible to change history, it might be possible to change the date of the ultimate outcome.

The same game engine that drives this game has been used for the new "War Plan Orange: Dreadnaughts in the Pacific", a game covering the hypothetical conflict between the US and Japan in the 1920's and 30's. This opens a world of new possibilities as Pre-Washington Naval Treaty battle ships slug it out for supremacy in a world before the rise of aircraft carriers.
I haven't played War Plan Orange, but my copy is in the mail as I write.

The authors have outdone themselves.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strategy on the Grandest Scale, July 14, 2008

By 

Gary R. Childress (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: War in the Pacific (CD-ROM)

What can be said about War in the Pacific? The game is HUGE! As supreme commander of either the Allies or the Japanese you control multiple aspects of every land, sea and air unit that participated in the Pacific theater of operations from December 1941 to 1945. You can choose to play the game in increments of one day per turn or up to three days per turn. One day per turn of course means 365 turns to go just from December 1941 to December 1942. Each turn may take an hour or so to complete. It's not uncommon for a full game to last a couple of years, especially in multi-player. But the real charm of War in the Pacific lay in the journey not the destination.

Air groups can be upgraded to better planes. You choose what type of mission to fly for a day. Task forces must be created and given destinations. Land units must be given combat orders or marching orders or possibly loaded aboard ship and transported to their destination. Toggles can be set for whether you want a unit to accept replacements or whether you want a ship to receive an upgrade at its allotted date. As the Japanese player you also directly control the output of your industry. Allied industrial output is, however, unadjustable.

Is one of your bases running low on supplies? Then you need to set up a supply task force, order it to load the necessary cargo and send it to that base. Maybe a fighter squadron could be flown ahead to cover the arrival of the supply task force. Or perhaps you should create a carrier task force as an escort if the base is in harm's way.

Is one of your infantry divisions low on morale after ten straight turns of deliberate attacks against a determined enemy? Then, perhaps, pulling it back to a better supplied base with a command HQ and outside of a malaria zone will help it recover.

The detail of the game is astounding. There's a running debate among the War in the Pacific community of gamers about whether the game should be classified as a "simulation" or not, meaning how realistically does the game model various aspects of the war. The jury may still be out but the very existence of debate says a lot about the detail of the game.

Unfortunately the game is not without its share of bugs and disputes about the statistical accuracy of various aspects. Most bugs appear to have been patched. Various fan created mods have been created using the included scenario editor to address perceived inaccuracies in data.

All told War in the Pacific is definitely not for the faint of heart. The learning curve is more like a learning cliff. As can be expected with such a complex game engine, the AI makes a rather poor opponent and probably best serves as a training wheel for the bigger show; playing against another person via e-mail. Despite these drawbacks I can't think of any other game which more accurately or more thoroughly immerses the gamer in as large a campaign. War in the Pacific is in a league of its own when it comes to scale and detail.

Overall I give the game the second highest rating only because the Admirals Edition, an improved version due out soon, is promised to be even better with more features and even more accurately simulating the realities of the war in the Pacific.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mother of All Wargames., July 19, 2010

By 

bullmkiey "bullmikey" (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: War in the Pacific (CD-ROM)

This is a game of awesome beauty (as beauty goes in the war gamming community) and a great many unrequited passions, I might add. It's almost too awesome to play. At the rate I'm going (and learning) it's going to take me longer to get through my first game than it actually took to fight the real WWII in the pacific. There's not only a formidable learning curve, but also so darn much of it. A lot of love went into designing this game and it shows. But I'm afraid it's going to take a lot of heartbreak on my part to get it down to where I can play it well. It's the only game I play where I keep a notebook by my side (like a diary) to keep track of things I've learned but could forget. Anyway, if you've got the time and patience, and you like get right down into the nitty-gritty of history, this will be right up your alley. I highly recommend it to the serious war gamer. All others might want to start off easier and work their way up to this one. I probably should have done that. But now it's too late and I'm in way too deep to back out. What a way to go anyway!