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War Plan Pacific: Nimitz with limitz
Written by Tim Stone on January 4, 2009 at 1:02 pm.
For those of us that like our strategic entertainment martial and historical 2008 wasn’t exactly a stellar year. AGEOD kept their end up well enough, Matrix Games produced the odd semi-precious gem, and Combat Mission: Shock Force finally started looked like the game thousands of CMx1 fans hoped it would be, but overall it was a stale, depressing twelve months. The famine may explain why I’m moderately excited about War Plan Pacific, a pared-down WW2 wargame from new outfit KE Studios.
The 4-turn demo is a wonderfully elegant thing. KES appear to have captured the character of the Pacific war without simulating every marine, maru, and crate of catalina parts. There’s no confusing logistics or annoying taskforce babysitting. You just assign your ships to fleets then send those fleets off to patrol, raid, or attempt invasions. Moves are plotted simultaneously on the main map, with resulting battles conducted through a trim battle screen. Victory conditions are intelligent, the AI seems competent, the action plausible… my only real concern is longevity. Carriers At War, another PTO wargame with a likeable less-is-more design approach, ultimately torpedoed itself with a slim scenario selection. WPP doesn’t look particularly well endowed in that department either.
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Cigol says:
Downloaded the demo but it crashes immediately after I start the executable. Edit; nevermind, I installed it wrong. I used the .msi file to install instead of setup.exe.
January 4th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Scott says:
Considering thirty years later folks (myself included) are still playing cardboard wargames with a single scenario I’ve never felt that a computer wargame automatically needs to have dozens of scenarios to be playable.
The full version of WPP includes three scenarios (one historical, two alternative set ups but still pseudo-historical, no Turtledovish happenstances) and creating new ones is easy enough to do. Involved, yes, but since it boils down to editing XML text files anyone can do it. What you won’t be able to to do is turn it from the PTO to the Atlantic.
Oh, and for anyone hoping for a downloadable version expect to see an official announcement on that soon.
January 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
leeder_krenon says:
Too bad this is Pacific theatre, I’d be interested otherwise.
January 4th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
RichP says:
For some reason, I’m really digging the game’s fonts, especially on the battle map.
January 4th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
theleif says:
looks like a nice game!
But 2008 a stale strategic year? Well, yes, except for Europa Universalis: Rome with the Vae Victis expansion. Try it out.
Wink wink, nudge, nudge.
January 4th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Dreamhacker says:
………CMx1?
January 4th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Alikchi says:
This does look really lovely, and hopefully it’ll interest more people in the Pacific War.
Speaking of Matrix Games and the Pacific.. the game I’m most excited about right now is War in the Pacific: Admiral’s Edition. Basically Matrix hired all the people who did the best mod work on the original WitP and set them to work for a couple years.
Link: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/351/screenshots/War.in.the.Pacific.-.Admiral%27s.Edition
Of course, this is more for people who prefer “annoying taskforce babysitting.”
January 4th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
MCHN says:
Not to derail the conversation, but can anyone give a more complete explanation as to the status of Combat Mission: Shock Force? I loved the earlier CM games, but was completely put-off by the horrible reviews for CMSF. If it is half-decent now, I wouldn’t mind having a crack at it.
January 4th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Weylund says:
It is more than half-decent. I spent about eight months on the testing team for it (got a manual credit on the latest release, no less) and pretty much everything has improved by leaps and bounds. Infantry combat (a gripe of mine with the original version) is now amazing, and Steve, Charles and team are at work making the whole game even better every single day.
I’d definitely recommend checking out the latest demo – the Marines module just came out so hopefully there’s a demo of that.
I had serious issues with the game for about six months after its release… now I can’t put it down. It’s come so far from the version that was reviewed at release that it’s practically a wholly different game.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy it. Cheers!
January 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Real Horrorshow says:
I just had an epiphany…with cover, naval battles, building occupation, etc. implemented in Empire Total War, it might be possible to make a Pacific War game out of it. That would rule.
I’d just be happy with a naval battle mini-mod though.
Anyway, this looks interesting. I will DL and have a looksie :)
January 5th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Troy Goodfellow says:
The point about WPP’s longevity in single player is a good one, but this is a great light wargame in many ways. It was one of my choices for wargame of the year primarily because of how easy it is to pick up. This could be the Recommended Newbie Wargame that I have been waiting for for years.
Re Combat Mission Shock Force, I haven’t tried the Marines module, but yes, the core game has improved over the weak launch version. It’s still a little fussy for my tastes, but certainly worth a look if you are interested in modern urban combat.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Dan Harris says:
Guadalcanal.
That is all.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
TC says:
@MCHN
CMSF is actually worth a punt now so get it by all means, theres also a British army module coming out soon.
Tim..you missed Strategic Command Pacific Theatre published my Battlefront in December.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
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January 4th, 2009 at 5:14 pm