Attack on Pearl Harbor

December 7th, 1941 and the blow that lead to the expanded theatre of war for the United States. The Japanese, in a bold strategic move, attempted to wipe out the U.S. Pacific Fleet and caught a lot of ships unprepared during the surprise attack in Japan’s opening salvo of the war. Unfortunately, Japan’s act of “infamy” failed to catch the big fish, the U.S. aircraft carriers. Had they been moored at Pearl Harbor, the war might have had a different outcome.

That is the historical element and the setup for Attack on Pearl Harbor, a PC game from Legendo and CDV. Once you understand that setup, forget everything else. The game itself uses the attack as a backdrop but the rest is pure fiction.

With Attack, the story is told through comic book panels – with action seen from the third-person perspective – and both work out well. The game is set up in an arcade style with limited numbers of aircraft at your disposal. The game also has campaign and dogfight modes. In the campaign you fly as Douglas Knox for the U.S. and Zenji Yamada for the Japanese. There are five American fighters available: the F4U Corsair, the SBD Dauntless, TBM Avenger, Seafire F-MK-4S, and P-40 Warhawk. On the Japanese side, there are the A6M1 Zero, BSN1 Kate, D3A1 Val and J1N1 Gekko. There are five mission types: Air Battle, Bombing, Escort, Search and Destroy and Torpedo Mission. There are seven battle areas – Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea, Saipan and Peliliu.

The game has a reward system and you start off as a fresh-faced pilot and then, after accruing 500 points, you are promoted to Lieutenant JG (Junior Grade). You can also earn medals and unlock other aircraft to fly.

The graphics are terrific and the effects do a good job of keeping the action lively. There is a moment of satisfaction when you dive bomb a convoy and see the boiler on the ship explode, sending the ship down to a watery grave.  The cut scenes are told via comic panels, which do little to prepare the player for the great look of the game itself, but do a solid job in trying to give the game a story feel. The planes show damage, and you will see tracers lighting up the sky like deadly beams of light. Should the stream hit you, you will hear the plinking of bullets either bouncing off or penetrating your plane. The environments are also very well done.

As for the controls … well, there is easy to use and then there is this title. No tricky take-offs or landings. Hit the space bar to take off and the end of the mission is all you need to get to; you don’t have to circle back around and land. A radar display will help you head in the right direction and arrows on the sides of the screens shows you where the targets are. You have a targeting reticule. When it turns red, you will hit your target. Dropping bombs is simple. The left mouse button takes care of the plane’s machine guns; the right mouse button drops your bombs. Hold down the right mouse button and you can watch them hit.

The game does support both solo gaming and online multiplayer dogfights. Unfortunately during the play times used for this review, few people were found online. But really, the meat and potatoes of this game are the campaign modes. This is not a flight sim; taking off is simple and once the mission objective has been accomplished there is no need to worry about returning to base and landing the plane. The focus here is solidly on the action. To that end, ammunition is never a problem. The game also does not seem to worry about collision paths with the plane models. The dogfights can take on a frenetic pace but the gameplay is not handicapped in terms of trying to evade attacks. Roll overs, loops, you can almost do whatever it takes to shake off enemies trying to make you look like Swiss cheese.

Gameplay: 7.2
The control elements are strictly arcade and the whole idea is to get players into the game and allow them the opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merits, not because they are struggling with a control scheme that eludes them.

Graphics: 8.0
Kudos for the strong graphics. There are a few minor glitches and the lack of a collision path immediately removes any immersion. The environments viewed from a distance can seem soft, but the plane models and crisp and the effects are solid.

Sound: 7.2
Nothing unexpected is presented here, but this is a nice adjunct to the graphics and brings home the action.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium

Concept: 7.4
Let’s face it – WWII fighters tread very familiar territory and even a couple have tackled the attack on Pearl. This title uses that attack as a setup for a solid arcade experience and supports it with strong graphical elements.

Multiplayer: N/A
The game does support multiplayer but no matches were found at the time of the review.

Overall: 7.2
The game is not going to make inroads in terms of gameplay, or graphics, or sound. It is an arcade-style action game that moves at a strong pace and is enjoyable for its action. Don’t expect the game to have much to do with a true re-enactment of the Pearl Harbor attack and accept the fantasy that this game brings to the foreground. What it does, it does well.