I remember playing this all the time with my dad growing up. Super nostalgic for me. All the planes move and handle differently, the guns sound and feel powerful, explosions have a satisfying crunch to them. Torpedo and dive bombing are fun, even if you can only do them in a couple of missions. Beating the game unlocks a slew of different European and Axis planes and an instant action mode that give it a ton of replayability.

More than that though, this game really nurtured my fascination with this part of history with it’s attention to period, between the different types of planes, ships, weapons, lots of them coming with text lines detailing their real world application, the different factors that went into war on the pacific front, translated into mission objectives, the pre-mission briefings, the voice acting and fuzzy radio chatter, the down to earth characters, the real world footage between missions that details the real events, even the menus presented in the style of wartime propaganda. It has this very grounded, thorough, authentic period feel to it that most WW2 games don’t have. I owe this game for educating me on the pacific front similar to the way Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker educated me on the Cold War.

Fuck the Catalina missions though.