AVSIM Commercial Combat Add-on Review
UbiSoft Maddox Games Pacific Fighter

This sim moves the setting from the Eastern front to the Pacific theater. Allied fighters and bombers square off against the notorious air power of the Japanese empire. Fly a large variety of British, U.S. and Australian aircraft. Target enemy ships, vehicles, airfields, and a host of AI-controlled aircraft. Re-enact some of the most famous air battles of WWII in places like Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima.

Test System 2.2GHZ P4 128MB RAM FX5900 GPU MS Sidewinder 2 & CH ProPedals 110GB HDD Flying Time: 40 hours

Documentation and Installation

Installing Pacific Fighters is easy, all you do is put the first CD in the drive, and follow some prompts to install it. One of the unique features is that Pacific Fighters can be installed in a "merged" install with IL2 Forgotten Battles. The installer is easy to use, and is pretty fast, but on my system I got constant errors from Windows about taking the first CD out of the drive and inserting the second one to finish the install (I think this was just XP being difficult, as the program installed fine). The install uses about 1.1GB of disk space, but that will swell as patches add aircraft, ships and maps. The documentation is very sparse, but is better than most programs will have. Paper manuals consist of a small booklet in the box that covers some very basic elements, but lacks any detail (the last Pacific Sim, CFS2 had a manual that covered over 100 pages and read like a novel; my how times change). Also included is a chart of keystrokes and some additional information is on the game CD’s. In the game, there are tutorials that help to make up for the lack of paper documents, but there is still a bit of trial-and-error involved if you have never played a Maddox sim.

When I loaded the game, I felt right at home with the menus. The main menu is identical to that found in IL2 FB, which is a mixed blessing. Although the menu is uncluttered and finding most of the important things is simple, the menus are awkward to use and the interface looks somewhat archaic thanks to ;"switches" and "dials" being used to select options. There is some background music here, and although it is a nice touch, it loops a lot and generally gets old fast. If you use the merged install like I did, the blending of the games is flawless and there is not a separate set of interfaces for each one, which is a very nice feature.

Missions & campaigns

The in-game interface is uncluttered and manages to display all of the relevant information without festooning the screen with radars and displays that look like Star Trek rejects. On the lower left of the screen is a readout giving heading, altitude (MSL) and speed. These can be displayed in metric, US, or nautical units. The top of the screen will display any text from your wingman or other friendly planes, but this text can clutter up the mirrors on some planes, so it can be disabled. The top left of the screen houses the easy to use interface for wingman commands. There is no radar, but enemy aircraft can be labeled and a mini-map that shows where you, your allies, enemies, and waypoints are.

The game has all of the mission types that any good combat sim needs, and then some. There are the single missions, which are divided by nationality, service (army, navy etc…) and then by aircraft. This makes finding a mission you want easy, and removes a lot of guesswork. The quick missions are fun and very well done, but the fact that they are static (the same things happen at the same times every time the mission is played) means that they have a limited replayability.

Pacific Fighters also includes a very nice quick mission builder (QMB). It is here that the merged install really shines. The QMB consists of a set of menus that allow you to pick your plane and loadout, as well as that of friendly and enemy flights. In addition a ground target (bridge, armor etc….) can be selected as well as the amount (if any) of AAA protecting said ground target. The QMB is a lot of fun as you can set up huge dogfights that would have never really happened, such as Fw190’s dueling with Corsairs.

QMB is also a great way to learn the basics of the game and to refine tactics by setting up 1 on 1 fights with opponents that can range from simple (C-47 VS Wildcat) to very challenging (Zero with altitude advantage VS Wildcat).

A full mission builder (FMB) is included and is one of the most powerful tools in the sim. The FMB allows settings of waypoints for flights, targets (and those targets behavior) and also triggers to make events happen at a specified time. Although the fine points of the FMB are very hard to learn, the results can be amazing, as many of the 3rd party campaigns for the IL2 sims will attest.

Realism settings are a big part of the learning curve in a sim and Pacific Fighters has a good set of options that make it (fairly) easy to pick up and fly and then make the sim progressively more real as your skills build. All of the generic realism settings such as invincibility, unlimited ammo, and unlimited fuel are present, but there are also some fairly unique options as well. Settings to disable any external views, disable target icons, and map icons can make the sim very lifelike (and VERY difficult) and are mostly used by very experienced players and on some online servers. (I personally like seeing the external views since it is after all, just a game).

The "meat and potatoes" of a single player combat sim is its campaign mode, and here Pacific Fighters delivers mixed results. The campaigns are plentiful and diverse, and can be flown as a pilot for the US Navy, Army, or Marines; Japanese Army or Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, or Australian Air force. Each of these divisions is split into several 1;"theatres" and several have a "bomber" or "fighter" option. At the campaign menu, you select the ;"theatre" (Wake 1942, Pearl Harbor ’41, Home Islands ’45 etc…), realism settings and an aircraft and off you go!

Each mission starts with a briefing that gives a general outline of what you need to do. Although these briefings are generally useful, they are nearly worthless in any kind of bombing or strike mission as they just say “hit targets at…”and never specify what these targets actually are (this is not an issue in carrier battles with few things to bomb, but is a pain in the island hopping missions since there are usually many kinds of targets in the specified area). Mission types include such classics as escorting bombers as well as fighter sweeps and interceptions, which are generally quite challenging (depending on realism settings) and give a great view of the diversity of the missions that were flown in the Pacific.

In the early campaigns, Allied players will find themselves often vastly outnumbered in a desperate attempt to save their carriers from waves of Vals, Kates and Zeroes. As the war progresses, the numbers begin to switch to a favorable position for the allies and, when combined with superior aircraft like the Corsair, missions turn into a turkey shoot of Japanese fighters (although in 1944-45, the Japanese will begin to launch Kamikaze attacks).

Despite the nice execution of the missions and the variety, some of the missions really highlight a big flaw in Pacific Fighters. In the early carrier and New Guinea campaigns (on both sides), and in the Home islands 1945 campaign (for the allies) you will wind up flying VERY long distances to find things to shoot down, bomb, or look at (if it’s a recon mission) While the autopilot can fly the long stretches quite happily, the fact that there is no “warp”option as in CFS2 makes for LONG flights even at the maximum of 8X time acceleration (it does look like a future patch might add an option to move the carrier closer the objective, which although it would sacrifice some realism would add a lot to the fun factor).

The other thing I dislike about the Dynamic Campaign (DCG) is some of the types of missions. Fairly often in the carrier campaigns (again, for both sides) missions will be generated where you have to find a downed pilot (always very far from the ship) or where you need to do recon to find something (usually a ship). While I can appreciate the realism that these add, they take a LONG time to finish and I think some artistic license in taking them out would have been nice. Although the default campaign generator is not that great, there is a great alternative that creates missions that are far larger (in terms of aircraft and ground vehicles) than Pacific Fighters’own system will. This freeware generator also adds a moving front and although the players’actions cannot change the outcome of the war, various airfields and cities can be taken, lost, and then recaptured. The new generator also adds land units into the fray, which will fight over towns, advance, retreat, and generally act smarter than the default campaign lets them.

Visuals

Now you know how the program installs, how the campaigns and missions work, and how the menus look. Now it’s time to get into how the game itself looks and plays.

Visually, Pacific Fighters is nothing short of stunning. The aircraft models are very smooth and there is not an obvious polygon anywhere to be seen. From the outside, the textures are crisp and clean, with no blurry spots or jagged edges. Pacific Fighters also has the best weathering effects that I have ever seen. Paint is chipped with metal showing through, dirt can be seen on the panel lines, and big exhaust and oil stains can be seen which look exactly like the real thing. The models also have a huge amount of detail in them. In addition to the usual moving controls, pilots swivel their heads around and track targets or flight leaders. Above a certain altitude, O2 masks appear on crewmembers, and then disappear again when descending. Wings fold, cowl flaps move, and canopies also move (accompanied by the pilot raising his seat up).

Since getting shot up is inevitable in a combat sim, Pacific Fighters has one of the best visual damage systems in the industry. Bullets leave little holes in the airframe, and even produce sparks when ricocheting off armor plating. Panels can get shot off and will reveal the underlying structure of the airplane. Cannon hits produce bigger holes in airplanes, and as such, good cannon shots can riddle a target with holes big enough to see the ground through.

Like the debacle that was CFS3, Pacific Fighters has no 2d panels, but instead uses very detailed 3d cockpits. Unlike CFS3, the cockpits are true works of art and are generally a step above those seen in IL-2 Forgotten battles. These cockpits are fully animated and include an amazing array of tiny details. All of the main controls and gauges move and even the nonmoving parts look flawless. The cockpits show wear and tear that looks as good as (if not better than) that seen on the external models. The cockpits also have their own damage models. Holes can appear in windshields, oil from a damaged engine will spray over canopies (this makes it quite difficult to land), and instruments will be destroyed by gunfire.

Since the Pacific war used lots of ships, many kinds of vessels from Japanese sail boats to carriers and battleships are modeled in Pacific Fighters to defend or destroy. All of the ship models are up to the quality seen on the airplanes, although they lack damage textures. Ships guns swivel around and some even have 3d gunners. The Ships have a decent AI system and will trade gunshots, torpedoes, and will even bombard land targets with shellfire. The bigger warships are VERY capable of defending themselves against air attack from a small group, and even large swarms of airplanes are at risk from the AA fire thrown up by a carrier and its escorts.

As the Pacific ocean suffers from a lack of land, (which is why they call it an ocean) you will be seeing lots of water, and I am happy to report that Pacific Fighters has some very impressive water effects. Depending on your graphics card, the water will either be blank (not too impressive, and only seen with a few built in cards), have reflections, cloud shadows, and wave action (most modern cards will show this) or will have a lot of waves, reflections, and will generally be the envy of a lot of simmers (this needs newer cards like the NV4X, or Geforce 6800 series.) Pacific Fighters also has a great splash effect for things like shells form AA fire, or planes brought down by said AA fire. Also present is a nice wake effect for ships and prop wash for low flying airplanes.

The little land in Pacific Fighters is variable in quality and is really the only letdown in the game. Areas like New Guinea look realistic with lush greenery and some 3d trees. Mountainous terrain looks very good with smooth hills as well as jagged peaks and valleys. Where the terrain falls short is on the islands. Wake and Midway look quite good with lots of hangers, parked planes, and trucks present, and Pacific Fighters also has a nice sand texture that actually looks like sand and not like white dirt. Volcanic islands however, look like something from MSFS 98. While the terrain is fine, the ground texture is excessively dark and doesn’t look terribly convincing.

While I’m talking about ground, I should also mention that Pacific Fighters has a plethora of ground targets to blow up. Vehicles ranging from trucks to tanks move along roads or beaches, while AA ranging from little .50cal mounts on trucks to bigger fixed place guns make life difficult for low-level strike flyers. Many types of buildings are also present and cover everything from tents to revetments and hangers.

Effects

Although detailed 3d models make the sim look good, it is the superb effects that really add the immersion factor into Pacific Fighters. Muzzle flashes are present and are much less glaring than the massive flashes used in both of the IL-2 sims (which looked like they would be better suited to heavy artillery). Ships and AA guns also get their own muzzle flashes and all of the guns have small smoke trails behind them. Aircraft guns spit out a stream of empty cases, and torpedoes leave a wake behind them.

Aircraft damage effects are some of the most impressive ever to be programmed into a flight sim. A hit in a fuel tank will result in a stream of fuel trailing the aircraft from the damaged tank, and if self- sealing tanks are present, this stream will eventually go away if the hit is small enough. If self -sealing tanks are not present, the stream will continue until the aircraft runs out of gas in that tank. More critical hits will result in a stream of gray-black smoke, which signifies a hit on the cooling system. This means that the affected aircraft is losing coolant and (depending on the severity of the hit and the aircrafts damage model) it’s engine will seize in a few moments or it will continue on to base. The best kind of effect to see on a target (and the one you don’t want to see on your plane) is a huge cloud of rolling black smoke that signals fire. If this smoke is accompanied by flames, the aircraft will blow up soon, and it is advisable to either bail out, or get away from the flaming kill, depending on your situation. If just the smoke is present, there is a miniscule chance that a power dive might briefly extinguish the flames, but the flames will come back, which always results in a satisfying “boom”and little bits of plane flying everywhere.

Pacific Fighters contains about 40 planes, but not all are flyable. The AI models are mostly bombers like B-17’s, B-24’s and Catalina’s for the Allies, and Kates, Betties, and some fighters for the Axis. Flyable planes for the Allies cover well know aircraft like the Wildcat line, Corsair line, 2 SBD models, a Seafire, as well as an A-20 and a Beaufighter. Axis fighters consist of several models of the Zero, which run from 1942 to 1945, a Zero float-fighter, as well as several models of the Frank, Tony, and Ki-84. Japanese bombers are limited to a single Val model.

Flight models

Now for the moment you were all waiting for - the flight models. If you are just used to flying either MS FS2004 or CFS3, you are in for a surprise.

Unlike the compromise-filled flight models in the FS sims (which admittedly can be beaten into realism), and the horrid ones in CFS3, Pacific Fighters ’flight models really give a feeling of what a WW2 fighter was like to fly. One of the best aspects of Pacific Fighters is its feeling of mass. Lightweight Japanese fighters are insanely agile, but will be outclassed by planes like the Corsair, while the American Grummans feel like flying a pickup truck. While Microsoft has been unable to deliver a spinnable flight model, that is not the case in Pacific Fighters.

This sim demands that you watch your speed and how hard you yank and bank, or one of two bad things will happen (depending on realism settings). Either the plane will fall into a stall and spin (this is bad), or the pilot will black out, which results in you losing control until you “wake up”(also bad), or a third combination is possible whereby you black out, the aircraft spins, and then you crash (this is very bad). The aircraft all feel different in flight, and carrying ordinance and fuel must be thought out before trying to get a fully loaded aircraft off of a very short deck, or you will get a good close look at the water and splash effects. Nuances of the aircraft are also perfectly reflected here. For example, the Zero starts to get very heavy ailerons above about 300MPH, while the P-40 has more roll control at high speeds. Also modeled is the fact that the Wildcat had hand -cranked landing gear, so moving the gear necessitates many presses of the keys for manually lowering and raising the gear.

Maddox Games have perfectly captured the tactical strengths and weaknesses of each aircraft, which means that strategy is essential to winning a fight. Japanese fighters are very nimble and can outturn any allied fighter in the game. Because of this agility, though, they are not very fast (by late war standards) and lack both armor and (for the most part) firepower. This means that as an IJA or IJN pilot, you need to get the Americans into a low and slow turning fight and shots must be made at close range at wings or canopies since the Zeroes and Franks lack the firepower to down the armored Grummans and Voughts.

American fighters use a different strategy, though. Allied fighters are heavier, better armed, better armored, and in most cases, faster than their Japanese rivals. This means that Allied fighters need to keep their speed up, make quick attacks, and then get away to set up for another run. Against fighters, teamwork with flight members is paramount. Attacking bombers also needs a bit of planning in order to avoid getting hammered by gunners. Allied bombers are very hard to down with most of the Japanese aircraft, and almost require killing the pilot to down planes like the B-29, B-17, and B-24.

Damage models are very sophisticated and make getting a damaged fighter home an interesting experience. Allied fighters can take quite a few hits (the Wildcat and Hellcat can absorb a full load of .30 cal rounds from a Zero and still fly) and get home in one piece, whereas most of the Japanese fighters just blow up when hit by gunfire. Hits in the fuselage are usually not much of a danger, but they can cut control cables, which disables that surface. Hits in the wings will cripple the aircrafts ability to manuver as well as its speed, and fuel tanks can either leak or explode. The engine is a bad place to get hit since a coolant leak means that you are going to have the engine seize up, but the amount of time it takes to do so depends on the severity of the hit. To top it all off, hydraulic system hits can mean that you will struggle back to your carrier, only to find out that your gear and flaps are immobile, so you had better crank the gear down or get ready to swim.

Landings are not much of a challenge on land, but carriers make life much more fun. The first part of landing is finding where the carrier is, since it has been moving at high speed since you took off. This is accomplished by either using the mini-map, or by simply letting the autopilot find the boat for you. On final, you will be unable to see the deck due to your nose high attitude, so you can raise the seat to get a better view. Catching the wires is no easy feat, but it s simplified by the fact that the deck is always clear of other planes, a luxury that few Pacific theater pilots had.

AI & overall performance

It is worth mentioning the AI. Pacific Fighters has one of the most competent AI systems ever put in a PC sim. The friendly AI is capable of acting on its own pretty well, but it really shines once you begin to put in commands via a simple number menu system. This allows you to tell your wing mates to attack, defend, cover, and even go home. Although the system really requires a third hand in combat, it is essential to surviving and winning dogfights when flying as outnumbered Americans in the early war years.

The enemy AI is no slouch either. Aircraft will twist, turn, jink and generally be very hard to hit. Enemy fighters will also make a very good effort to get away from you and wind up on your tail. To make life harder, the AI will support each other which makes it a necessity to constantly “check six”to avoid getting holed by your targets wingman. Bomber gunners are pretty capable, but have (thankfully) lost some of the sniping abilities that appeared in IL-2 Forgotten Battles. On multi-place aircraft, it is possible to take over any position and fight from there. If you want, you can still fly the plane from a gunner’s seat, but you can also let the AI take over a vacated position, simplifying your workload.

With all of this detail, Pacific Fighters looks like a frame rate nightmare, but it really runs very smoothly, even below recommended specs. Ubi recommends a 2.4 GHZ system with 1GB of ram and a 128MB graphics card. In addition you need about 1.1 GB free on your hard drive. I run Pacific Fighters on a 2.2GHZ system with 512MB of ram and a 128 MB FX5900 graphics card. Despite having a system slightly below specs, Pacific Fighters ran butter-smooth with all of the setting cranked up. Framerates stay high, and the only stutters I noticed were in massive battles with 30+ aircraft and some ships running about.

Loading times are the only disappointment in Pacific Fighters. Missions take about a minute to load up, and for some odd reason, getting out of the mission can take several minutes on occasion. Although I think some more RAM might help me with the exit times, the load times are a common gripe and have plagued Maddox games since IL-2.

Support

After the abandonment of CFS3 by Microsoft, I was acutely interested in how well Pacific Fighters would be supported after release, and I am happy to report that support is superb. There is a support forum for Pacific Fighters on its official site (www.pacific-fighters.com) , and it is a bit of a mixed bag. Since Pacific Fighters is a closed code sim (meaning no 3rd party planes), the forum, in addition to hosting news about 3rd party missions and skins, also serves as a place for some people to whine incessantly about how this or that plane is either “uber”, “porked”or, an “uber”plane flown only by “noobs”. While the bickering can get old, the forum is well moderated, so most of this stuff disappears pretty fast. The forum is inhabited by people who are VERY good at troubleshooting, and almost any problem seems to get fixed within 12 hours.

In addition to the forum, Maddox provides a good relationship with the community and actually listens to input from game owners. Every so often, a patch will come out to fix several small flaws, but invariably some more always creep in. Most of these bugs are small and won’t be noticed, but some of the bigger ones that appear, such as having the wheels or floats on fixed gear planes break off at 400KPH, are not only noticeable, but also annoying. New aircraft appear as part of a patch on occasion, and I have a feeling that something like the Aces expansion is in the works for Pacific Fighters.

Since Pacific Fighters is a closed code sim, there will never be the variety of add-on aircraft that CFS 2 saw, but this is not really a bad thing. New aircraft are added every so often, and they always raise the bar for what warbirds in a sim should be.

REVIEWERS NOTE: As of this writing, an issue has arisen with Pacific Fighters that may severely curtail the planned free add on. Apparently Northrop-Grumman is demanding massive royalties form Ubi and Maddox to include anything made by Grumman (or any of the many companies they now own). Oleg Maddox has said little on this, but some Pacific Fighters fans have contacted Grumman, and it does appear that there is a legal issue afoot. What this means is that either the free patch will just be Japanese planes, or that patch may never come out until this is resolved (which might be a VERY long time).

Sounds& online play

Sounds are a big part of the immersion factor for a combat sim, and Pacific Fighters delivers in that department. Ships have engine sounds and all of the varying calibers of guns have a unique sound. Ground vehicles also get engine and gun sounds, so you can actually watch tanks fighting to take a beach during a landing, and it will sound as good as it looks. The aircraft sounds are adequate, but are nothing spectacular. Engines sound fine, but don’t have a lot of the audio nuances that are now showing up in sound sets for MSFS. Weapon sounds are fine as well, but again, are nothing to write home about. The voiceovers are well done, but there are some odd flaws such as an aircraft splattering against the ground and then being told to “return to base”.

Pacific Fighters also features online play, and it works spectacularly. Ubi provides an in-game service for linking up for online play, but this is usually pretty dead. More players and servers can be found by using Hyperlobby or All Seeing Eye.

Online modes are varied and are a lot of fun to boot. There is the generic dogfight (either free-for-all or team) and that is by far the most popular and entertaining mode of play. Also available are cooperative missions as well as full coop campaigns (these are a bit hard to figure out, though). Since Ubi provides no servers, the quality of servers can vary. Most of the servers work fine and give little lag, but some servers appear to be running off of a commodore 64 and play like a slideshow with atrocious lag. Servers have varying difficulty settings so everyone from new players to hardened aces can find a server that matches their skill level. Despite the fact that Pacific Fighters will support up to 128 players on a server, I have yet so see a server with more than about 30 slots on it.

Overall, Pacific Fighters is one very impressive product. Despite flaws in the campaigns and a few other bugs, it is a lot of fun and may well be the Pacific theater sim that everyone has been waiting for. Although there is an apparent legal issue, the product is well supported and acts as a great replacement for the venerable CFS2.