The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific Review

As the year swiftly comes to a close, it becomes irrevocably clear that 2007 saw a very impressive number of incredible first-person (and third-person) shooters. The degree of quality that these titles possess is so great in fact that upcoming FPS games have dauntingly high expectations to meet. After all, when you're following in the footsteps of magnificent art, it's difficult to get noticed.

Unfortunately, The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific is an FPS that not only fails to inspire or redefine the genre, but it also misses the mark of mediocrity. This is an extremely substandard game, through and through, and it's almost a shame that it had to follow such a great series of acts. Set in the now entirely overused backdrop of World War II, Battle for the Pacific attempts to recreate certain segments of the Pacific Campaign including the legendary Battle of Iwo Jima. However, its lackluster presentation, abundance of AI glitches and forgettable narrative make this an FPS game you may want to skip.

We don't mean to say that Battle for the Pacific is entirely hopeless -- it occasionally demonstrates (at least through imitation) a handful of respectable elements like average combat mechanics and a few good animations here and there. But these are hardly enough to redeem its negative qualities.

Here they come.
Here they come.

Battle for the Pacific places you in the dirt-covered boots of an American soldier participating in the US campaign to retake key strategic positions, including the aforementioned Iwo Jima. Perhaps the first problem that presents itself is the complete lack of soldier personality, which is becoming increasingly apparent in FPS titles nowadays. The only character you'll develop any sort of relationship with is your Sergeant, who miraculously survives just about everything that's thrown at him (and does a surprisingly good job of taking down the opposing force). Besides this ultimately weak character, no one else really matters, which is too bad.

The next obvious problem is the core gameplay: following people. Almost every mission among the collection of about ten missions involves you following either a commanding officer or fellow soldier, and if you stray even slightly from their immediate vicinity, the mission fails. Hooray. In other words, the gameplay doesn't change much, so once you've seen the first ten minutes of the title, you've basically seen it all.

This promptly leads us to our next issue: the game's length. Sure, the first ten minutes just repeat over and over again, but for how long? There lies our biggest surprise: the game only lasts two hours tops (unless you die frequently). For an almost full priced FPS title, two hours is bordering on pathetic. But with such an intrinsically weak experience, maybe that short length is a blessing in disguise.

But let's say that these issues don't get you down. "I don't care, Ryan," you say proudly in dignified protest, "I still have a resounding desire to partake in this Battle for the Pacific!" Well, we should also point out that the game is noticeably glitchy, especially when it comes to your fellow soldiers. Because you follow at least one NPC for the majority of the game, you rely on them quite a bit to move forward. Unfortunately, your "guide" will often stand in place idly and stare at a wall, run back and forth in one spot, or generally just forget where he's going (or so it seems). This really hurts the gameplay and makes the experience much less enjoyable -- though it wasn't overly enjoyable to begin with.

Reload!
Reload!

Otherwise, the game is almost entirely forgettable. It technically works, but going through the same jungles and trench environments gets old pretty quickly. In fact, some of the beginning levels look virtually identical to the final ones, which isn't promising.

As for the multiplayer experience, we can't strongly recommend Battle for the Pacific because our searches for a match usually resulted in no fellow players. Considering the fact that the minimum player count ranges from three to four, the grand majority of our matches couldn't even start. Awesome.

Closing Comments
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific isn't necessarily an atrocious game, but it just isn't that fun and brings so very little to the table. As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, there are numerous FPS games out there now that are highly worth your time. Try them. Leave Battle for the Pacific on the shelf, unless you're legally bound to own every World War II-related videogame ever made. If that's the case, we feel bad for you.