The Campaign

To take over the world, or not to take over the world

CFS2 places you in the pacific theater just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese war machine is at full force, and the Americans are still testing out the water, almost literally. During the course of the campaign you will find yourself fighting over the same important tactical positions that your historical counterparts did. The Philippines, Australia and the surrounding islands are key positions. You'll find yourself island-hopping across the Pacific to do battle with your enemies.

Gonna be a rough ride home...

Passing through my crosshairs

In the game, you have the option to fly for either side. The campaign keeps you interested but is far from a nail-biter. The campaigns are pseudo-dynamic, meaning that a win or loss will determine your next location and mission. If you fail to secure the Philippines, you will have to deal with enemy bombers flying out of there; that's the penalty for giving the enemy a plum base.

Your standard missions will be assaulting and protecting ships, bases or bombers. This is hardly surprising since these are the same types of missions flown by pilots during the war. The campaign is long, with 120 missions. Of course, you won't see all of these missions due to the game's campaign structure. Despite its length, the game didn't get tedious or boring. There are a good number of different combat scenarios, and the different vehicles and planes vary enough to make you keep your strategies up to date.

I love the smell of flak guns in the morning

The poor raccoon

You have a fair selection of aircraft to choose from. On the Japanese end, the A6M2 and the A6M5 Zeroes are both available, as is the legendary flying gunboat the N1K2-J Shiden-Kai. American planes include the F4F-4 Wildcat, the F6F-3 Hellcat, the P-38 Lightning, and the Corsair. Compared to other sims out there, the plane selection in CFS2 is pretty limited. To spice things up, there are quite a few non-flyable aircraft present in the campaign mode as well. Depending on your mission, you'll have to destroy or defend various bombers, other fighters, ground vehicles, and ships.

In addition to the tremendous number of missions, the single player campaign also has a great feel. The whole campaign is peppered with art in the classic 40's pulp comic style. In addition to this art, your wingmen also talk to you in perfect tone and acting, including in Japanese if you chose to be a pilot from the Land of the Rising Sun. Each section in the campaign opens with a journal entry read aloud by its author, set over art and music. You soon feel like a servant of either of the two great nations.

Once you tire of the single player campaign, which you most likely will, you and your friends have the option to design levels for each other with the mission editor that ships with the game. The mission editor is outstanding. Not only can you play with terrain and place units, but you can also set up the patrol routes for these units and numerous other little goodies. Designing and creating missions will offer up quite a bit more replayability for the hardcore user.

Mountain ranges galore

This poor guy doesn't know he is in my crosshairs.

So many options…

Microsoft didn't label this combat-sim with its trademark "Flight Simulator" without good reason. The intention of the folks at Microsoft isn't just to make a game, but an entire simulation. The game is just as complex as its civilian counterpart, with the extra complexities of combat with primitive aircraft thrown in.

In order to cope with this system shock of realism, the developers of CFS2 shipped a little help with their product. Little? Forgive me, the manual of CFS2 has passed international standards to officially be dubbed bigass™. This virtual tome details 310 pages of flight sim glory. Most gamers won't ever bother reading 10 pages of instructions, let alone 310. For these users, Microsoft threw in a bit of incentive.

Note there is no enemies on the radar, note my wingmen colliding, hmm...

Flying into the suns... Mountain.

The book isn't just hotkeys and information regarding pretty, self-explanatory items like the "Quick mission" button. The game details the necessary things, the planes, their strengths and weaknesses, how to properly fly them, basic physics, and fundamental maneuvers. The manual also includes a whole lot of information that it didn't have to, but is much appreciated.

The book is filled with historical quotations, along with tactics, and profiles of the great aces and their personalities. The book also contains hundreds of real life pictures of battle in addition to paintings and photos of the devastation that different bombs can render. The book will not only prepare you for battle in the pacific, but it will also have you brain hemorrhaging in anticipation.

A fly-by over his wreckage is not uncalled for.

To the plane, my wingmen