Luckily it’s not just about Carriers…
Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers is an air combat arcade game with an unfortunate name. It was released in 2012 by Games Farm and is part of a series of other Air Conflict games with less silly names.
As the name suggests, it’s set in the pacific, in World War II, and you either destroy Japanese or US ships and airplanes. You do this via ultra simplistic controls (‘hold ‘Y’ to take off carrier’), which don’t get in the way of the arcade appeal. If you want to, you can switch to ‘simulation’ controls, which will then get in the way of the arcade appeal. If you’re at it: switch to the beautiful cockpit view, that takes away two thirds of your (preferably TV-) screen and you are set for disappointment. This goes well with the boring multi stage battles, which make up the game’s campaign.
But if you take the game for what it is – a simple arcade game – you can actually have fun with it for some short intervals. It even looks pretty if you stay far enough away from the ground and any naval vessel. Sometimes the graphics glitched on me, but it remained playable.
It’s not the game I asked for, after enduring some Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Especially since it lacks the ridiculous and cinematic story telling, but gameplay wise it’s a little bit more up my alley. I might return to this if I remember it at the right five minutes of boredom.