“But that’s how it was: I look at the working Word with the text, before submitting the preview Battlestations: Pacific – three or four hours, no more. And then I understand that what I’ve written must definitely be thrown into the fireplace, because it comes out sluggishly and abstractly, as if it were a press release and it’s not a gamer’s interest, but an exclusively professional one in a not very good sense. How can you tell without interest??»
Let’s do without the typical words “will”, “surely” and “will they have time to close?" – this is a hands-on preview. We played, so we’ll tell you how everything is controlled, looks and works.
When we say “simulator” we usually mean something complex. So complex that you immediately want to grab a disk with some Half-Life 2, furiously install it and build towers from boxes for the hundredth time. Just not to lower the landing gear in IL-2: Sturmovik with supposedly fifteen buttons and not to flinch at every beep of the radar in Silent Hunter. But sometimes simulators are not as scary as they are described.
A moment of admiration
I was able to play only a few levels because Battlestations: Pacific it is long in time and contains two campaigns – one for the Allies (follows the historical chronicle as far as possible), and the other for the Japanese (“how could it be if …").
After the trial session, https://bettingsitesnogamstop.co.uk/review/slottio/ it became absolutely clear that they seriously invested in the project, and not only financially. Game videos – chic. Special effects – doubly chic. The virtual ocean reaches to the very horizon, and, coupled with certain angles, causes awe. Imagine, a small airplane is diving, and within a radius of a kilometer there is only water. And all around there are all kinds of explosions, a whole cloud of other planes, and cruisers and aircraft carriers are shooting at each other.
Polygonal sailors are running back and forth on the ship, hurrying somewhere, passing something and sometimes looking at the captain’s bridge. This fuss is not without reason – a couple of minutes ago the casing was scratched by small fragments, and now they will start bombing like an adult. We decide to repel the enemy attack and at the same time see how the air defense is here. It turns out that the famous arcade Paratrooper and there is no smell – each projectile has ballistic properties, and catching the aggressor in sight is not enough – until a small explosion occurs in the intended place, the aircraft will be gone: you need to calculate the flight path and only then pull the trigger.
Joysticks-mice-gamepads
…The rescued aircraft carrier is noticeably smoking – a couple of torpedoes still reached their target. It’s too early to send the ship to the bottom: in a special drop-down menu you can order the crew to patch the hull or deal with a fire in the fuel compartment. A few minutes – and everything is as good as new. Simulator?
Yes and no. I can describe for a long time the feeling that arises when playing Battlestations: Pacific – on the one hand, it’s clearly not an arcade game, on the other hand, you don’t need to know a combination of fifteen buttons to perform a “loop” in the air. I think the term “friendly interface” is suitable – the conventions do not reach the point of absurdity (that is, ships do not strafe or do somersaults), but understanding the controls is not particularly difficult. You just need to remember how this or that combat unit behaves.
However, after getting acquainted with another mission Battlestations: Pacific thoughts about the arcade disappear somewhere. Not a large-scale battle between one fleet and another, not at all. Sabotage. Several Japanese mini-subs infiltrate an enemy port with the goal of striking quickly and decisively and then escaping.
a) There are only a few torpedoes on board. Reload time is long.
b) The team needs to breathe, and therefore the boat periodically needs to take in air while floating to the surface.
c) It is impossible to go to depth in case of danger – the steel vessel will be crushed by pressure, like a lump of plasticine.
Add to this patrols, floating mines and attentive opponents who do not forget about the attack in a minute.
And here we are, frightened by every spotlight and sometimes bumping into reefs, approaching the goal – a hefty battleship. In order not to give ourselves away, we raise the periscope above the water. As it turned out – in vain, suspicious periscopes are not favored in enemy harbors. Literally after a couple of seconds the alarm goes off, the patrols converge on the boat and shoot it. Watching the stealth bacchanalia Sergey Zykov, marketing manager, sympathetically says: “Do you know that you could hide under some large ship, right in its shadow? And release the torpedo under the noise of the engines, so that no one would hear anything until the very last moment?»
So, simplicity and attention to detail coexist in one game. On the one hand, everything has been done so as not to strain the user. On the other hand, we just realized how the attempt to carry out sabotage “in a simple way” will end.
The question “will we wait?"not worth it. Because there’s nothing left to wait, but Battlestations: Pacific clearly not one of the second-rate crafts that you can safely pass by. With just one correction: we only saw a few missions. Will the full version be as exciting??