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1942: Pacific Air War
1-Click Install
Windows
11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP
(MicroProse 1994)
MY PROMISE
My games are genuine, install in one step, look, sound and play in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP like they did in the old days, or your money back.This is my unconditional guarantee for three years.
WHAT IS INCLUDEDThis listing includes the original game CD. An on-screen, printable manual is also included. The game box is pictured for reference and is not included.
I will also provide a compatibility CD that will allow the game to run under ALL VERSIONS of Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP, both 32 and 64 bit.
INSTALLATIONOne step: Insert my CD and the game will automatically work on your computer. Done. Yes, it's that simple.
Want to play? Click the icon. Want the game off your computer? Click Uninstall. Zero hassle.
TECH SUPPORT Rapid response technical support for three years is always an e-mail or phone call away.
In the extremely rare event I cannot get this title to work on your system I will take it back for a full refund. All I ask is minimal assistance from you during the troubleshooting process.
The Game
1942 Pacific Air War recounts the exploits of the fleet commanders and pilots involved in thePacific carrier operations of World War II. Combining great early 90s graphicsand a realistic flight model, 1942 promises became the next level inflight sims when it was released.
Players have several different choices in playing 1942, from choosingamongst a series of single missions, to following the path of a pilotthrough a career, to taking the helm as an admiral commanding a task forcein the south Pacific ocean. For all these choices, Japanese or Americanforces can be selected by the player to pilot or command.
Single Missions
These missions are broken down by mission type (Combat Air Patrol, FighterSweep, Bombing Run, Torpedo Ship) and are intended to familiarize theplayer with the many different facets of piloting the various planesfeatured in 1942. Becoming a proficient torpedo bomber will not mean muchonce you strap yourself into a fighter!
Once the player decides which mission to run, he is then brought to abriefing screen that displays in summary fashion the flight path of themission and its objectives. Following this is the Armament screen thatdisplays a default payload (usually extra fuel tanks as required or a setof bombs or a torpedo should you choose such a mission). This screen canbasically be clicked by without much thought. Once your plane is armed andready, you find yourself sitting in your cockpit going over your pre-flightchecklist. This is where you decide how "hard" your mission will be bytoggling the enemy pilot skill level, realistic flight model, and limitedammo among other things. The total difficulty factor is tallied at thetop, and varies from 0 (if you choose training mode) to 3.0 (maximumlethality).
Finally, you're on the runway! Initially your view is on the dials of yourplane, but this can easily be switched to a "heads-up" view through thefront of the canopy, and to the standard left/right/back and externalviews. Don't be gazing for too long though, as your wingmen are busygetting airborne and you don't want to be left behind!
Once airborne and in formation (this can be taken care of by switching onthe autopilot), the player can move to a map of the area of the Pacificocean the mission takes place in and follow the flight of the planes asthey proceed along their flight path. Time Acceleration can speed thisprocess up substantially.
Eventually, the player will either reach the target or will be met bybandits, whichever comes first. At this point the game will dump theplayer back into the cockpit to deal with the present situation. Unless intraining mode, leaving autopilot on will only result in the computer flyingyour plane for you, not defending it, so it is a good idea to take mattersinto your own hands.
From this point the player gets a good feel for the flight model present in1942. As somewhat of a layman as far as flight sims are concerned, I can'tattest to specific performance characteristics that others may detect aseither correctly modeled or deficient. However, I can say that it sure feels right to me! Knocking bogeysfrom the sky is much more difficult in 1942 than in any other flight simI've played. Elements of flight such as engine torque, buffeting, and theeffect of the sun are all modeled quite well in 1942.
Once the objective of the mission is completed, the player returns to homebase and a post-mission briefing provides a summary rundown of the missionresults. One thing to note in single missions is that if the plane youshould be piloting gets shot down, you then jump into the cockpit of thenext plane in your flight. You can also do this at any time during amission through the press of a key. This is not available if you shouldchoose to pursue a pilot career. You can also jump to the back seat indive or torpedo bombers to man the rear machine gun in single missions,with the computer taking over piloting chores. Again, this cannot be doneduring a career since the career you are following is that of a pilot, nota tail gunner.
Career Pilot
After playing various single missions, the next logical move is to see howfar you can make it through the war by choosing the career pilot option.At times MPS flight sims have been criticized for always putting the playerin a "you against the world" environment. Well, despite the fact that youhave other planes alongside you, this feeling is still prevalent in 1942.Flying missions as a career pilot is virtually identical to flying singlemissions, except that you now fly a string of them in one type of planeonly (either a fighter, bomber, or torpedo plane). All sequences leadingup to the beginning of each mission in a career are identical to what isseen during single missions.
Carrier Battle
The strategic element of carrier operations is simulated very elegantly andcleanly in the Carrier Battle option. Via this option the player has theopportunity to fill the boots of Admiral Nimitz or Yamamoto by takingcontrol of an entire task group in any of the 5 major Pacific carrierbattles of World War II. The player can also set various realism settingssuch as accurate/inaccurate battle reports, weather effects, and random orhistorical set-up to spice things up. This adds greatly to the replay-ability of carrier battles. Players can also jump in to any strike thatthey launch as well, effectively creating a single mission to play.
Carrier battles are played out on a map screen very similar to the mapscreen displayed when you are piloting a plane, except the map during acarrier battle covers more area. It is from this screen that the playercarries out all the major functions that an Admiral had to be concernedwith - launching searches, CAP, strikes, and direction and speed of thetask group. Success will require the admiral to be able to balance allthese functions, and to be lucky once in a while.
The Carrier Battles option presents a very good overview of carrier operations in the Pacific duringthis period of history, and is loads of fun.
One of the many things 1942 allows you to do is build your own missionsfrom scratch, or edit one of the many existing missions. The missionbuilder allows you to create missions that contain all of the elements thatare evident in the missions that were included in 1942. As of thiswriting, I have not had time to experiment with this option, so I cannotdescribe more fully its capabilities. One thing I have noticed is thatthere is a limit of 16 planes total that can be in one mission.
Although a bit confusing at first, the film replay feature is really quitea powerful and flexible tool in 1942. Missions are automatically recordedfrom the moment the player takes off to the moment he lands (or crashes).The player can review a mission in its entirety from any of the availablecamera angles, and can also step in to relive the mission at any time. Inaddition, portions of the film can be edited to change the camera anglesand these changes can be saved in order to produce a more cinematic replayof a mission.
Enemy pilots are tough enough for me without setting their skill level tothe difficult setting. Now if only tail gunners were as proficient. Inthis release of 1942, Japanese tail gunners do not seem to be nearly asactive as US tail gunners. In fact, I've never seen a Japanese tail gunnerfire a shot when I'm piloting a Japanese bomber.
Overall this is a fine sim for its time. 1942 offered so many choices that there was something to suit nearly everyone's
