PEARL HARBOR ZERO HOUR GAME
How many of you know where I’m going with this already?
Score two points if you’ve already realized that Pearl Harbor: Zero Hour is, in my humble estimation, hardly worth your time. The premise of the game is simple enough. You assume the role of a United States pilot during the Second World War. You’ll battle your way across the Pacific in ten separate missions flying up to 14 different aircraft. Using a carrier or airstrip as your base, you’ll choose your plane and set off in a mission to either blow up a ship or blow up an airfield — sometimes both. For every target you destroy you earn points; once you blow up, you can use these points to buy new planes and continue the mission.
That happens a lot.
The planes are well chosen. Wildcats, Hellcats and Corsairs will battle it out with Zekes, Vals and Kates. You’ll also be able to try your hand at the Mustang, the Thundebolt and the Lightning. The Devastator and Avenger fill the torpedo-bombing role, while the Flying Fortresses, Mitchells and Super Fortresses take care of your larger ground attacks.
Each plane is rated from one to four in each of four areas — speed, armor, agility and fuel. There’s plenty of difference between a plane with a speed of two and a plane with a speed of four. More important, however is your weapon loadout. Often you’ll pick a plane because it’s the only plane that carries torpedoes or rockets. Almost all the planes have some form of secondary armament so you won’t be totally lost. Oh, there are also three hidden planes, but I’m not telling you how to find them.
So let’s talk flight model. While the arcade model of Airfix Dogfighter was seriously limited, the model here is much more so. There are no rudder controls, only three settings for speed and no chance at all to cross over the Z-axis or to roll more than 70 or 80 degrees in any direction. These limitations, combined with the fact that you can only play the game in a top down perspective.
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