Pacific Strike.....WWII Wing Commander?
- Thread starter Ripper
- Start date
Delance
Victory, you say?
Originally posted by Quarto
Well, any game that allows you to change the course of history is likely to have some historical inaccuracies.
But that has nothing to do with realism.
Any simulator or strategy game, no matter how realistic, allows the player to change history.
Take a flight simulator like Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, with actual historical missions from WW2 to the Vietnam. You can play a historical mission on an realistic flight sim, but unless another outcome is possible it isn't much of a game, or a simulation.
Same thing with a game like Panzer General. Unless you can win/lose battles in a different way than the actual history, what is the fun in playing?
Pacific Strike is not realistic for other reasons.
Dominator
Rear Admiral
Well - yes but take for example Combat Flight Simulator 2 - the game was realistic and the missions were historical (roughly). One pilot can`t make a difference in such big conflict (with exception of Wing Commander 
) And as for Panzer General - I like the game but it has no realism at all I`m afraid. You should play V for victory or World at war series if you are looking for it.
) And as for Panzer General - I like the game but it has no realism at all I`m afraid. You should play V for victory or World at war series if you are looking for it.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
That was the fun thing about Pacific Strike, though... being able to make a difference. I mean, what could be more fun than winning the war two years ahead of schedule?
...Well, I suppose winning the war two years behind schedule and getting to fly the Bearcat could have been more fun, but blast, I never got around to playing the losing path
.
...Well, I suppose winning the war two years behind schedule and getting to fly the Bearcat could have been more fun, but blast, I never got around to playing the losing path
.
Delance
Victory, you say?
Change "realism" to "historical inaccuracies" on what I said. Every single simulation and strategy game allows you to change history, even the "historical accurate" ones.
Pacific Strike has historical inacurracies of its own, it has nothing to do with the fact that it allows you to "change the course of history".
Every single napoleonic/ancient/ww2/american civil war strategy game could not allow you to lose or win any battle in a different way than the historical one. What fun is that?
Delance
Victory, you say?
Originally posted by Dominator
Well - yes but take for example Combat Flight Simulator 2 - the game was realistic and the missions were historical (roughly). One pilot can`t make a difference in such big conflict (with exception of Wing Commander
Same thing for V for Victory, it also allows you to change the course of history.
As for one pilot changing the course of history, tell that to the guy who hit the Bismarck and pervented it from escaping the British Royal Fleet. It was just one single guy. There's also the crew who piloted the Bombers with the Nukes.
But at any event, it is clear that fighters are way more important on WC-era warfare than on the real historical world. Space superiority means everything, and fighters on WC are very overpowered when compared to capships. That's why the most important ships are carriers, and even smaller ships carry some fighters. Any capship without fighters is a sitting duck. The whole concep was designed this way so players in fighters could have more fun. If fighters were not important, well... What would be the whole point of the game?
Hence, with such set of rules, it makes sense that a single pilot can change history on WC much more than on WW2.
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Hmm.. I shoud've edited instead of double-posting. Oh well.
Ripper
Peace Through Superior Firepower
This is all good stuff, so in addition to the current discussions, how about a few words on how WC and even Privateer could have benifitted from these Pacific Strike features:
You could have 5 wingmen, 6 planes total in the air, under your command.
You could choose for your wingmen the type planes they flew, and even their loadouts.
Picture yours and Vagabond's Excaliburs, with Flint and Vaquero in Longbows, and Maniac and Cobra in Thunderbolts, all leaving the Victory to sweep the area for bad guys.
Prophecy could have been a little more interesting if Casey coild have been promoted to the point where he could choose his own ship and loadouts and wingcritters.
Hmmmmm?
You could have 5 wingmen, 6 planes total in the air, under your command.
You could choose for your wingmen the type planes they flew, and even their loadouts.
Picture yours and Vagabond's Excaliburs, with Flint and Vaquero in Longbows, and Maniac and Cobra in Thunderbolts, all leaving the Victory to sweep the area for bad guys.
Prophecy could have been a little more interesting if Casey coild have been promoted to the point where he could choose his own ship and loadouts and wingcritters.
Hmmmmm?
I think that was kind of the point. They specifically wanted to back away from giving you that sort of control, along with some of the other features added in 3, and get back closer to the original.
As far as talking to enemy pilots goes...
Well...
Obviously, language difficulties were the biggest problem. Then you also had the simple fact that its doubtful the different sides tied themselves into each others' radio channels (except for the odd intelligence spook). There is one rather odd story I vaguely remember reading about years ago.
Apparently during one battle in the Pacific during WW2, the American pilots and the Japanese pilots somehow ended up on the same radio channel. The American pilots were trying to use the channel to communicate, but they kept getting a bunch of Japanese over the channel, which made things difficult. Finally, one American pilot hollered something to the effect of, "Get off the channel!" at the Japanese.
It worked.
WildWeasel
Spaceman
You were always in charge of your wing, though. That's all you were usually entitled to, however.
Dominator
Rear Admiral
Delance:
There are many actions of individual soldiers that altered course of single battle but it had little impact on outcome of war, and bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was very big and complex operation that involved hundereds of people - pilots were only part of it.
Wulf:
Pacific Theatre of Operations 2 is avery good game, and it shows why US won - war of production is the most important thing in every long, all-out war (US Civil War, WWI,WWII, and even Cold War). It would be great if someone created similar game in Wing Commander universe.
Mav23:
The same is with Combat Flight Simulator 2 - you can only survive war as a Japanese pilot, and struggle become more and more hopeless near the and (one defensive mission after another - much like the first part of WC3).
As to chatter between pilots - this one is from CFS 2 manual:
"`Binky` squadron spotted a small flight of zekes[zeroes]... everyone started calling them in:`Binky leader, bandits in the sun.``Binky, binky, have you got the bandits? Eleven high; eleven high...` and so on. And binky leader was saying, `okay, binky, okay. Don`t drop your tanks yet. I see them, I see them`
And a new voice came into the headsets at the moment: `We see you, too, binky.`"
The other story took place during Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944. US communication officers intercepted transmissions from Japanese commander who directed waves of bombers on american ships from his aircraft. This allowed americans to direct CAP fighters even better than radar. When the first day of battle was nearly over some officers asked adm. Mitscher for premission to shoot down Japanese commanders plane - he told them `No, he did so much good to us!`
There are many actions of individual soldiers that altered course of single battle but it had little impact on outcome of war, and bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was very big and complex operation that involved hundereds of people - pilots were only part of it.
Wulf:
Pacific Theatre of Operations 2 is avery good game, and it shows why US won - war of production is the most important thing in every long, all-out war (US Civil War, WWI,WWII, and even Cold War). It would be great if someone created similar game in Wing Commander universe.
Mav23:
The same is with Combat Flight Simulator 2 - you can only survive war as a Japanese pilot, and struggle become more and more hopeless near the and (one defensive mission after another - much like the first part of WC3).
As to chatter between pilots - this one is from CFS 2 manual:
"`Binky` squadron spotted a small flight of zekes[zeroes]... everyone started calling them in:`Binky leader, bandits in the sun.``Binky, binky, have you got the bandits? Eleven high; eleven high...` and so on. And binky leader was saying, `okay, binky, okay. Don`t drop your tanks yet. I see them, I see them`
And a new voice came into the headsets at the moment: `We see you, too, binky.`"
The other story took place during Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944. US communication officers intercepted transmissions from Japanese commander who directed waves of bombers on american ships from his aircraft. This allowed americans to direct CAP fighters even better than radar. When the first day of battle was nearly over some officers asked adm. Mitscher for premission to shoot down Japanese commanders plane - he told them `No, he did so much good to us!`