Damage Inc – Pacific Squadron WWII Special Edition Xbox 360 Review

Now it’s time to get things fired up and put both the game and the stick to the test, with the game fired up I quickly got into the main game on on with the tutorial, which is where things got tricky, having some rudimentary experience with flight sim games in the past, I was keen to show off my flying prowess in this title, but unfortunately for me, this didn’t go as smooth as I had hoped. The game features two control schemes; Arcade, which allows you more flexible maneuverability when it comes to turning your craft, but locks you to a chase cam. Then we have simulation, where you can choose from chase, cockpit or nose cameras, why this multi camera option isn’t available in both modes is baffling, and this is not helped by the fact it can only be changed in the pause menu.

With Arcade selected I found the game all but unplayable, but again this is because of my previous experience in flight sims and my play style just didn’t blend with this mode, things improved a lot with simulation, although I would use that term lightly as the general physics of the game are somewhat whimsical when it comes to how the planes handle, but no worries, this is in my mind still more of an arcade game at heart, so I appreciate that they support a more in depth system of flying the plane, not just the watered down arcade mode. The tutorial serves its purpose well at getting you up to speed with the basics, but that doesn’t make the game any easier, the stick feels really sensitive in almost all cases and the planes feel extremely twitchy, so you may find it takes around an hour before your even getting close to hitting your targets accurately, it’s a steep learning curve that could have been resolved with a sensitivity slider.

The planes do look really cool in this game, unfortunately though the graphics are nothing special, everything is there that needs to be but I can’t say this is the most robust game engine I have seen as frame rates occasionally drop off and some of the self shadowing on the planes and other objects flickers and looks harsh at the best of time, but again I’m willing to overlook all this to an extent if the gameplay/fun aspect is up to par.

The game features 20 missions all which take you to some of the most famous dog fights of the time, playing pilot in some truly iconic aircraft, but it all feels a little bit tacked on somehow, I can’t quite put my thumb on it, but the game has an overhanging feeling of being unfinished that I just couldn’t quite shake off.

The missions themselves are far from easy too, the first mission throws you straight into battle and it took me eight attempts to get anywhere with it, most of the time I felt it was down to the lack of precision in the handing of the game, finding it really frustrating to see the enemy in front of me but never being able to centre my crosshair properly, while the game does offer some slow motion and speed up boosts in an almost limitless supply, this then makes things too easy and it creates a situation where either method provides no satisfaction.

The real fruit for this game then has to be its multi-player, having a friend with the same game really helped me with this one and while the controls didn’t make things any easier, being able to tear around and blast my friend out of the sky was as entertaining as it should be, especially when you can greif each other with your headsets on, or work together to take down other players, but its little compensation for the difficulty of the single player campaign.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byM7xQhACcY[/youtube]