Pacific Islands

Title		Pacific Islands
Game Type	3D Combat Sim
Company		Empire
Players		1
Compatibility	Not A4000
Submission	Stuart Wilson

Review
Pacific Islands was the follow up to Team Yankee and as its name suggests is
set in the Pacific Islands, where conflicts demand the intervention of the
USA and a crack tank commander: You.

You are in complete control of 16 very expensive American tanks which are
divided into 4 squads, and these tanks are not invulnerable. Thus found
are the problems inherrent with commanding so much expensive military
hardware against a foe who knows the terrain a damn sight better than you
do, and knows you're coming...

The interface is surprisingly simple, on the map screen you click which
team you want to command and click where on the map you want them to go.
They then happily follow your orders without question, crashing through
jungles and forests, sneaking behind cover, patrolling built-up areas,
fording streams and even happily blundering into minefields.

The object generally is to take control of key areas, destroy enemy
communications, escort support groups and suchlike. The game demands a
tactical approach as opposed to a gung-ho attitude: Enemy vehicles hide in
jungles, often springing surprise attacks on your vehicles. The battles
are straightforward enough, select the weapon and use the mouse cross-hair
pointer to  get a fix on your target, click and fire. That's the idea
anyway. In practice an effective range for each weapon must be taken into
account, missing an enemy draws attention to yourself, and having a small
battalion of T72's bearing down on you certainly drives home the
importance of surprise in warfare.

Missions may be taken at any time of the day; night missions surprisingly
being the easiest, as the enemy has inferior Infra-Red imaging to your
tanks'.

The graphics could be best described as 'functional', they certainly aren't
to the standards of other war sims like Gunship 2000, but the functions are
well laid out, simple and extremely easy to use. Much of the time you'll
be looking at a screen divided into four, where each portion represents a
first person perspective from a different vehicle. A little like Hired
Guns or Space Hulk, it works well. Sound is somewhat sparse but effective.
One thing about this game is its addictiveness and playability: Once
the initial problems of controlling 4 groups of 4 tanks are overcome the
rest of the game is extremely easy to get in to, and rewarding, especially
when after 40 minutes of gameplay the 'Mission Won!' message appears.

Graphics: 73%
Sound: 63%
Playablilty: 82%
Addictiveness: 87%

Overall: 77%

Alphabetical list.