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History Channel: Battle for the Pacific, The

5.8 based on 9 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 17 votes Read user comments Rate this game

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The History Channel takes you to the Battle for the Pacific where you will experience history brought to life in one of the defining campaigns of World War II. Relive epic land battles fought on some of the most brutal and unforgiving battlefields in recorded history. Retake strategically important locations throughout the Pacific Theatre that are vital to the allies on the Road to Tokyo. Play through the eyes of an American GI as you experience intense, no holds barred action against an opponent for which surrender isn't an option! Fire authentic allied and axis weaponry including sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, anti-aircraft guns, pistols, and grenades Relive History - each level begins with a documentary video featuring actual battle footage, key facts and statistics, and the importance that the battle ultimately played in the allied victory. Fight from Henderson Field in Guadalcanal through the Philippines to Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Experience some of the most exotic and forbidden battlefields including dense jungles and barren volcanic islands. Face the harsh realities of war as you engage the enemy on the frontlines. Fight alongside squadron members reacting to the events of the battlefield, where fighting is often hand to hand and your objective is simple - defeat the enemy at all costs. Based on actual battles including storming the beaches in an amphibious assault, recapturing a strategic airfield, defending against an enemy assault, going on a search and destroy mission, fighting through fortified caves and scaling Mount Suribachi to plant the American flag. Play online as an American or Japanese soldier in your favorite individual and team based modes including elimination, team elimination, death match, team death match and capture the flag on battlefields painstakingly recreated from topographical maps and historical records. Battles come to life amidst exploding artillery, whistling bullets, falling comrades, unrelenting enemies and much more. [Activision]

PUBLISHER:	Activision
DEVELOPER:	Cauldron
GENRE(S):	First-Person Shooter, Action
PLAYERS:	Multi
ESRB RATING:	T (Teen)
RELEASE DATE:	November 29, 2007

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

60

PGNx Media

Battle for the Pacific's presentation isn't bad but it's gameplay has too many flaws to be recommendable. These flaws become even more apparent in light of the increased FPS competition on the Xbox 360. Skip this.

55

GameZone

The History Channel implementation, level setup and graphic selections are A+ choices; it’s the execution that tanks the experience.

51

Planet Xbox 360

With the wealth of FPS options for 360 owners, Battle For The Pacific is hardly worth a passing thought.

45

IGN

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.

40

Games Radar

There are a ton of fine shooters hitting shelves this year that are good enough to go down in history. It would be a shame to waste your money paying full price for this heap, which instead takes history down with it.

40

Game Chronicles

Just too little and far too late. The WWII genre isn’t exactly short on titles these days nor is the FPS genre. If you plan on releasing a game in either (and especially both) you had better bring your “A” game.

30

Official Xbox Magazine

When a game's only achievement is that it's a better World War II shooter than "Hour of Victory"--and just barely--it's time to pack it up and just go home. [Feb 2008, p.79]

25

Game Revolution

Ultimately, though, the biggest blow against the game is its brevity. You shouldn't have trouble clearing its single-player mode in two or three hours.

20

GameSpot

World War II shooters simply don't get worse than Battle for the Pacific.

The average user rating for this game is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a1:
Activision should be ashamed releasing such half-baked crap for anything more than $19.99. Thank god I manage a video game store and can steer shooter fans away from this horrible game. If you are willing to subject yourself to trench level, jungle path level, then the same trench level for 10 levels, then you will complete the game in only a few hours. I bailed after 7 levels when the commanding officer, who leads you by the nose got stuck on the environment in a trench level. The mission fails if you are too far ahead or behind this officer. It's tempting to deny this game any points because I wouldn't buy it for $1, but there were a few stupid shooting gallery/fish in a barrel moments that felt arcade cathartic. I'd hardly call it history though. Quite possibly a new low in FPS gaming.

Mark B. gave it a3:
This game is not worth the money. I ignored all reviews and still purchased it because it showed promise.(what was i thinking?) Ultimately i was very disapointed. I have played a lot of first person shooters and this is the worst by far. I did not even bother to play this past the second mission. While the graphics are good - it's almost similar to Call of Duty 3 , the framerate sometimes drops. The game is full of bugs and flaws. On the Luzon stage I thought we killed all Japanese troops. I was wondering where this single rifle firing was from. When i joined my allies i saw one Japanese soldier standing behind him and repeatedly shooting him and he was doing nothing. Another ocasion i was exploring the vicinity admiring the scenery and my unit commander was talking to - a tree. They did not bother to tweak this so that the character at least follows where you are standing. Take a lesson from Brothers in Arms! And that was not even next gen. Another problem is that the AI is just plain stupid. They all move the same. They just stand there when you shoot them. They even die the same. It's like a shooting gallery of lemmings! You can predict when the Japanese Soldiers will come out because the Allied soldiers will stop kneel and aim one second before the enemy comes out. Gameplay is linear like Call of Duty but you feel no urgency of completing the mission. The aim button feels useless since it does not bring up the sights. while your may not be shooting from the hip, you're actually shooting from your stomach. Since they had the gall to title this game "History Channel..." I would like to point out that it is not accurate. The Bataan Stage here is presented like a Snakelike or S like ridge and your running in betwen that. I guess this is in effort to make sure you go where they want you to go. Now I may not be a WWII vet but i have been it's a 5 hour drive from where i live. And guess what? I never saw any snaking ridges like the one in the game. Bataan is a Mountain near the beach! Look it up on Google earth! Sound - While the sound is average, you get turned off by yet another glitch - Soldier Chatter. It's like the programmers programmed the soldiers to say random lines. - i have no problem with that. I think it's being done by most programmers anyway but, I do mind when they don't review the dialogue to be flexible. Immagine this- While just moving from one point to another your ally starts to scream - Die you.... or Take that you... I immediately looked for cover and found that there was not even one Enemy (i don't remember the exact lines, because i was laughing so hard) This game is not a dissapointment.... It's a disaster.

Nathan C. gave it a4:
I feel a regretable set of circumstances has arised to create this game. The graphics are choppy and too uniform, the AI is empty of intelligence, and the historical context is questionable. That's the "His Story Channel" for you. I might be coming down too hard, but WW II was a very real and serious business. Tell you what, just rent "The Thin Red Line," that is more accurate and even, if I must, Happy.

Steve gave it a7:
Looks good but it's a little choppy. Haven't got that far into it to make a real good review but so far i would say it was average at best.

Jang O. gave it a9:
It was a pretty fun game for what it was - I didn't expect a whole lot but it by and far surpassed my expectations. I agree with Cris - God Bless Activision Value!

Thomas A. gave it a10:
This game was incredibly realistic and historical. The amount of history that took place in World War II was enormous, and you can always count on the History Channel to present it in new and exciting ways! Now you don't just learn about the history - you experience all of the history from a first-person perspective! It's really amazing what they have done!

Definicja C. gave it a4:
The 3 previous testimonials made me laugh even more than the game. They show perfectly how everything is great in description but leaves overally a messy "experiance". I give four points for graphics only - even tough it has a familiar feeling of SoF 3: Payback, I can't say it's bad or ugly. The nextgenish effects aren't too intrusive as well. Really nice work from graphicians here! As for the rest... uhm well to start... as I was playing the PC version I shouldn't really write about it, but WAIT - it's in fact the same thing as on XBOX360. Why? Let's have a few - really inaccurate mouse work (it actually floated), NONE configuration options and BAD, REALLY BAD PORTING - the framerate was dropping to 10fps on a X1900XTX Radeon GFX card which can perfectly handle better looking 'Call of Duty 4' or 'Gears of War'. Moving on to the gameplay. If you want some easy arcade fun - you can say it's average, in peaks to good. If you want a bit more like some aiming & tactics for instance, sorry - wrong adress. What's mostly distrupting is the AI or actually lack of it. Your team mates run like children with a used diaper no matter if the re is standing a pack of Japanese around the corner, they just ignore them, leaving all the shooting to you! The good side is that - gladly - Americans from the team are INVINCIBLE to enemy shots! When you finally deal with enemy soldiers (who are total MORONS by the way) your squad mates start running again shouting all the time "Move your ass", "Come on, let's go" and the best - "Soldier, you're not following orders". This gives you an idea how the levels play like - not only you're following the string, you got it tied around your neck. Once I tried to use a hill for a better shooting point - not only I was blocked by an invisible wall but also the mission ended prematurely because of my "insubordination". The next BAD thing already mentioned is enemy AI. In 3 missions I saw 1 (yes - ONE) kind of Japenese soldiers. They fight exactly how they look. They just run towards not even trying to shoot or take cover. They don't even make the famous bansai charge (History Channel, hello?!). If they actually survive the shooting (weapons in your hands are especially deadly - you can mow down even 6 troopers on one Type30 SMG mag), they can hit you a time or two, but it doesn't matter - the health regenerates fast even on hard difficulty level. There are numerous examples of funny situations which are the effect of the horrendous AI which I leave for you to discover ;) Moving on to Audio - glad that it exists. The music plays sometimes, there are some sound effects sometimes, there is also some tragic voice acting made by developers' families (no offence if this sound as an insult). Still this doesn't counts at all because all sounds are deafened by the repetetive "Follow the orders" commands from your squadmates. Concluding - this could be a really good game. The graphics are very important nowadays and Cauldron achieved a high level in this case, what they forgot about was OPTIMIZATION (or at least configuration options), SOUND, AI (the game's BIGGEST DEFECT), SCRIPTING and STEERING (of course on the PC). Also after playing some missions I don't feel more educated - Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault gave you far more interesting facts than this HC signed shooter. The only thing which will storm your brain after playing BftP will be 'why the f*** they wasted a promising potential' and 'were those Japanese really that dumb???'. My biggest congratulations to History Channel for signing this 'no-brainer' - it takes quite a valor to do such things.

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