The thought of being in the thick of 300 planes over the Pacific during World War II is probably enough to send chills up the spine of hardcore flight sim fans. Heroes of the Pacific will take us there later this year but it won’t just be for simulation fans, it will also fully cater to arcade fans. We throw some questions at those involved: how it compares to Secret Weapons over Normandy, the difficulty of getting 300 planes in the air at the same time, what kind of missions will be included, and the role of wingmen.

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Heroes of the Pacific Q&A

For the record, state your name, your background in the gaming industry and what Heroes of the Pacific is all about.

[BEN] Ben Palmer, err started in the eighties, mostly programming, design and production.

[JUSTIN] Justin Halliday, Producer, 14 years experience in the games industry in QA, Design, and Production.

[MICHAEL] Michael Davies, two years experience in sound and visual effects for Xbox, PS2 and PC.

[BEN] Heroes of the Pacific is an arcade flight-simulation based around the key battles in the Pacific during WWII. The player assumes the role of a rookie pilot, William Crowe, who joins the USS Enterprise as a fighter pilot shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour. During his campaign he is posted all over the Pacific and gets to participate in some of the greatest battles of the war, including Midway, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.

What will Heroes of the Pacific have to recommend itself over such titles as Secret Weapons Over Normandy and Crimson Skies?

[BEN] One of the main distinctions of Heroes of the Pacific is that we’re striving to accurately reflect the size and scope of combat in the Pacific Theatre during WWII. We have much larger battles; our technology enables us to support in excess of 300 active planes, which in turn lets us to recreate some of the bigger battles of the war. The player now can fly with a lot of wingmen (over 100 in some cases), making them part of a much larger battle rather than a lone wolf saving the world. The sight of your first big formation can be pretty awesome.

That number of planes also means we have a target rich environment, both for you as the hunter, and as the hunted. No more scanning empty skies looking for a few enemies. In Heroes there is always something to shoot at, making for a much more frenetic experience.

We have also given the player the option of playing a arcade flight model (ala Crimson Skies) or a realistic one. There are some advantages to the realistic model. You’ll have more precise control of the plane and can use things like engine stalls to your advantage.

Where did the initial idea come from?

[BEN] We set out to build a great arcade dogfighter. Initially we looked at a modern day scenario, but decided that firing missiles at radar blips was ultimately not as fun or challenging as dueling it out close range. We all feel that WWII was the “golden age” of dog-fighting, so we settled on that era as the backdrop for Heroes of the Pacific. It has lots of cool planes and weapons, yet still required a skilled pilot and up-close combat.

Was it tough finding a publisher for Heroes of the Pacific?

[BEN] Finding a publisher is always a challenge. Fortunately with Heroes we had a strong tech demo and publishers could quickly see the appeal of a 300 plane dogfight. In the end the process was fairly quick and we are very happy with the result. Encore has been great, getting right behind the product.

How difficult is it balancing between arcade and sim? Will there be separate modes?

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[JUSTIN] Heroes of the Pacific offers two different sets of flight control, Arcade and Simulation. The Arcade controls are similar to those in Crimson Skies, while the Sim controls give you totally control over the pitch, roll, and yaw of your plane.

It’s always tricky to make sure that a game like this is balanced. We design our games to be accessible to gamers of all levels, from casual to hardcore. So the different control schemes and different difficulty levels ensure that all players can play the game at their skill level.

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300+ planes in the sky seems almost too incredible. What was the process like hammering out the game engine?

[MICHAEL] Challenging! We knew from the beginning that we were aiming for an unprecedented number of planes so we focused on the parts of the engine that were going to be worked the most: fast swarm rendering, fast physics and fast AI logic. The engine was performing well on PlayStation 2 from the beginning, but obviously the addition of new features (terrain, boats, flame/smoke, clouds, more complex AI, etc) resulted in us doing weekly profiling to stomp the slowdowns and keep the engine at a constant high frame rate at all times.

How many missions will there be and what kind of objectives are going to be included?

[JUSTIN] There are ten campaigns in the game, from Pearl Harbor through to Iwo Jima. Each of these campaigns has between one and four missions, for a total of 25 or so missions.

In addition, there are a number of Historical Missions that we couldn’t fit into the main Campaign flow that we wanted to include in the game. These are available separately from the main campaign flow.

As for objectives, it’s important to have plenty of gameplay variety in any game. The types of missions in Heroes of the Pacific include combat air patrol, ground attack, anti-ship, interception, ship and base defense, and finally full-scale air-to-air battle missions.

Audio is important to any game, so how do you replicate the sights and sounds of WWII without seeming like, “Been there, done that?”

[MICHAEL] Having good quality, authentic samples is essential, and creative use of 3D sound can help. “Realistic” sound isn’t too difficult to achieve on modern consoles. We’ve tried to stand above other games by emphasizing things like the Doppler Effect and dialogue between characters during combat to help develop your wingmen as people, to draw the player into the action. While we’ve used a ton of reference material to create an authentic sound, sometimes it pays to exaggerate – it is meant to be fun, after all.

Heroes of the Pacific is going to be released on multiple platforms. Have there been concessions made for each in terms of control options? (Or are there major differences in the control for each platform?)

[JUSTIN] We are always careful to take advantage of the strengths of each platform when developing a multi-platform release. Although the game is essentially the same on each platform, there are some differences. For example, the control layouts are different for the PS2 and Xbox, and the texture resolution on the planes and landscapes will be improved on the Xbox and PC.

We’re currently having a long-term control discussion for the PC version. Most of the conversation centers around the implementation of mouse controls in the game, controls that are singularly unsuitable for controlling planes.

How many flyable planes can we expect to find in the final game? And how many are unique to Heroes of the Pacific?

[BEN] There will be around 25 flyable planes (with the potential to download some more) in Heroes. Since the planes are historic I would be surprised if any haven’t been seen in a game before, however we have a broad selection, ranging from early jets, fighters, dive and torpedo bombers, heavy bombers, bi-planes and the Baka rocket Kamikaze.

Have you ever gone for a flight in a WWII era plane? If so, has this experience helped you at all during development?

[BEN] We have had access to a few WWII planes here, including the P-51 Mustang, which we lovingly refer to as the “vomit comet.”. We have also recorded some of the planes engines going through their paces, whilst bolted down onto a truck, which in turn is chained to runway. Some of these things push out three times the power of a modern formula one car, not bad for a 60 year old antique. Of course all the pilots are now deaf.

We have also spoken to some veteran WWII pilots (US and Japanese) and current WWII plane enthusiasts about the game, stories and feel of the planes. Only last week we had a Mustang pilot in to test our most realistic flight model. The verdict was that the model was pretty good, but we will implement a simpler arcade model for all us common folk who haven’t earned our wings, yet…

Mods can help keep a game in the public eye. For the PC version of Heroes of the Pacific, are there plans to include tools to develop mods or user scenarios? What other online features will Heroes of the Pacific support across the three platforms?

[BEN] We have talked about releasing our tools on the PC. At the moment there is no documentation and the tools are not particularly intuitive, so we will probably have to revise them before unleashing them on the general public.

We will support some downloadable content and a number of online game modes. League tables, competitions, grudge matches and clans (Squadrons) will be supported.

What role will wingmen play (if any)?

[JUSTIN] There are two types of wingmen in Heroes of the Pacific. First, there are the other guys who are flying around who are on your side, but not under your control. Second, there are the guys who are under your control.

In Heroes you can give orders to up to four ‘wings’ of eight planes, for a total of 32 individual planes. These orders are accessed through a simple and intuitive wingman command menu.

As an example, in a mission where you attack an enemy ship, you can line up your torpedo run and then call in protection from a wing of fighters while you execute your attack.

What has been the most difficult part (so far) about working on Heroes of the Pacific?

[JUSTIN] Heroes of the Pacific started with just five guys in a room nine months ago. We now have a great team of thirty experienced programmers, artists, designers and QA on the project. It’s always difficult to put together a team this quickly, but the result is going to be worth it.

Be sure to check our Heroes of the Pacific preview.

(June 5, 2004)