Attack On Pearl Harbor for PC Reviews by Gamers

When you sit down at your computer to play a game, what are you looking for? A story that pulls you in and melts away the stresses of everyday life? Gameplay that's so intricate, so finely tuned it's able to achieve the same effect? Are you just looking for flashy visuals? If so, you'll want to pass on Legendo's Attack on Pearl Harbor. It offers none of those qualities, along with a recreation of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor so laughably dreadful it makes the entirety of Michael Bay's 2001 cinematic release seem inspired in comparison.''''As either American or Japanese forces you fly out on missions taking place between 1941 and 1945 across the Pacific, including the Battle of Midway, Iwo Jima and other famous locales to shred enemy aircraft, bomb ground targets, and torpedo battleships. By labeling this an action-flying game, we mean there's practically nothing realistic about the physics. Moving your mouse around jitters the plane's wings like a sheet of paper in a strong breeze, and even then it won't crash. You'd have to be either blind or missing both hands to smack your aircraft into the ground here.''''We're not complaining about Legendo's decision to make the flying mechanics unrealistically simple. Many games in the past have done it successfully. The action here, however, is so undemanding that it gets boring within about 10 minutes. It's one of those games you boot up, immediately understand how to do everything with your craft, and never discover any additional layers of gameplay.''''Mission types break down into three main categories: blow up planes, bomb ground targets, and torpedo battleships and carriers. Throughout the course of the game, the mechanics for completing each of these barely change, making it feel like after 50 missions you're still flying the same one. On Japanese and American sides you'll find many of the mission structures have been recycled so you actually will be flying the same missions, just with different plane skins and voices calling out objectives.''''Dive-bomber, torpedo, and fighter craft can be chosen to fly each sortie, usually with one being the clearly preferable choice, or chosen for you by the game in some cases. Each plane handles in a nearly identical fashion on Japanese and American sides, further flattening the gameplay's depth.''''Sophisticated AI for the enemy craft would have helped tremendously with this game, but it's not there. Your squadmates will follow you around and help out, and enemies will try to shoot you, but beyond that there's nothing noteworthy. Gaining a proper firing position on an enemy, a process that's supposed to be the most intense part of any air combat game, involves nothing more than moving the mouse slightly to the left or right. Your plane will circle around and inevitably turn perfectly into position. Unloading bullets may cause an enemy to dip slightly or veer to the side, but they never take any truly drastic action. They're never aggressive enough to actually make you fear for your craft's stability. If you find bullets are whizzing by from behind, you're not gripped with any sense of real tension, more like the realization that you'll yet again have to perform a lazy circling maneuver, fire a few shots, and shoot the nuisance to the ground.''''Theoretically some of the AI's stupidity can be resolved online, since rational humans can't possibly be that passive about absorbing bullets. The problem is, absolutely nobody is playing online right now. We've checked every day for the past week and found a total of one server up, which was named CDV (the publisher) and password locked. So even though it could be more entertaining, don't expect to ever get a match going.''''One of the few redeeming factors here include a comic-book style storytelling system, which would have been great had this game had any real story. In place of a cohesive narrative, the game is instead just a series of disconnected missions. They revolve around real battles, but there's no thread to tie them together, aside from the obvious "we need to keep winning" mentality of your commanders.

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