''Pacific Strike'' is a

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

combat flight simulation video game developed by

Origin Systems Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres of video games ...

and released by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

. The game follows the pattern of the ''

Wing Commander Wing commander (Wg Cdr or W/C) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence. Wing commander is immediately se ...

'' series, although it has a greater resemblance to its cousin ''

Strike Commander ''Strike Commander'' is a combat flight simulation video game designed by Chris Roberts and released by Origin Systems for the PC DOS in 1993. Its 3D graphics-engine used both gouraud shading and texture-mapping on both aircraft-models and terr ...

'' in the sense that it takes place in a more or less contemporary setting and allows the player to fly actual planes. The game, just like the above-mentioned titles, mixes aerial simulation with a cinematic plot structured through a series of cutscenes that play between missions. Unlike the above-mentioned titles, ''Pacific Strike'' was only released on a floppy disk version, while the others were released on CD-ROM versions featuring improved cut-scenes and more digitized speech. A remake, ''Zero Pilot: Ginyoku no Senshi'', was released in Japan for the

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in 1998.

Plot

Gameplay is very similar to Origin's ''

''. Unlike it or the ''Wing Commander'' series, ''Pacific Strike'' immerses the player into a real historical context as an American pilot during the months following the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

, flying aircraft from a carrier and performing missions such as reconnaissance, intercepting enemy planes and attacking enemy vessels. If the player does well, it becomes possible to defeat the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

without recourse to the atomic bomb. Extremely poor performance could result in the defeat of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and the ceding of Hawaii to the Empire.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

'' rated ''Pacific Strike'' 1.5 stars out of five. Reporting that Origin apologized on

CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

for the game's problems, the magazine cited poor performance and mediocre graphics compared to '' 1942: The Pacific Air War'', and weak sound, and said the game needed "deep and fundamental changes". James V. Trunzo reviewed ''Pacific Strike'' in ''

White Wolf Inphobia ''White Wolf'' was a game magazine, published by White Wolf Publishing from 1986 to 1995. History While still in high school, Stewart Wieck and Steve Wieck decided to self-publish their own magazine, and Steve chose the name "White Wolf" after ...

'' #50 (Dec., 1994), rating it a 3 out of 5 and stated that "''Pacific Strike'' is a thoroughly enjoyable product if you have a machine powerful enough to play it ..To date, Origin has released nine patches to repair various parts of the game. If a new game needs that many upgrades, it tells you something. I don't want to pan the game because it has so many strong elements, but the average gamers with a low-end system should be wary of this one." In 1996, ''Computer Gaming World'' declared ''Pacific Strike'' the 17th-worst computer game ever released owing to its poor performance even on high end computers.

References

External links

* * * {{Origin Systems 1994 video games Combat flight simulators DOS games DOS-only games Electronic Arts games Origin Systems games Pacific War video games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Hawaii Video games set in Japan Video games set in Oceania Video games set in the Marshall Islands Video games set in the Solomon Islands World War II flight simulation video games