“On the morning of December 7th 1941, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by air and naval forces of the empire of Japan….’ Who does not recall those famous words of President Franklin Roosevelt as he told the nation that they were now at war? For the next four years the USA and Japan would go at it tooth and nail, until Japan finally surrendered in August of 1945. This war showed that the airplane was supreme, and in CDV’s Pearl Harbor you too will be able to take to the skies over the blue Pacific.

Pearl Harbor is a third person flight shooter more in the arcade style as opposed to a realistic flight simulator. Players can select from either a USA or Japanese campaign and fly a number of missions during which they will earn ranks and medals for promotion, as well as additional aircraft based on destroyed enemy planes. The game starts out in comic book fashion with a series of drawn panels framing the very loose plot, which is basically you are an aviator at war.

The first order of business is to select the nation you will play, and once that is done to name your pilot or accept the default name. Next a brief description of the upcoming mission is given as the choice of aircraft you can select is highlighted. The aircraft choices would seem to be accurate for the period, but this is only on the surface and there are really very few choices.

As the Allies in the early war period, you can fly in one of three types of planes. Your fighter is a P-40 and the game allows for three different color schemes for your plane. These are very well done and look quite good in the game. You also have two other types depending on the mission: an SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber and a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. Like the P-40 they have alternate colors available as well.

The next thing to do is start the mission; usually you take off from a carrier or an airfield and are prompted to intercept the enemy or destroy ships or ground targets. The correct choice of plane will make the mission go smoother. Once airborne you will quickly discover you have unlimited fuel and ammo, so feel free to blaze away. The only controls are moving your mouse to indicate direction and turns, and two keys on the keyboard to speed-up or go slower.

The fighter has machine guns fired with the left mouse button and a rocket fired with the right button. Having a rocket on a P-40 (and also the Japanese Zero) is of course unrealistic, but this game is more like an impressionist painting of the Pacific air war; it feels like it but somehow you know it's way off historically.

The SBD has three bombs you can drop right away, but as you fly these regenerate so you really have unlimited bombs for the plane. The Dauntless and the other bombers can also shoot down opposing planes and has a rear-firing gun as well. The SBD is best vs. ground targets, which are hard to hit with machine guns and rockets. It is also decent vs. ships, but it takes quite a few hits to sink a ship.

The Avenger fires torpedoes instead of bombs. Torpedoes are the best weapon vs. ships in the game, so when the mission is to sink opposing ships this plane is best. The TBF is a little slower than the other SBD and the fighters, but it works well as it looks good.

The second US campaign changes only the fighter, so instead of a P-40 you fly a F4U Corsair. The missions are very similar in both campaigns and use real battles as their backdrop, but make no mistake, this is not a historical game by any means.

The Japanese campaign is similar to the Allied campaign, but you get to fly Japanese planes. The Japanese fighter is the famous Zero, the Bomber is the Aichi ‘Val,’ and the Torpedo bomber is a Mitsubishi ‘Kate.’ All of the planes are quite beautiful and it is a very pretty game to look at.

The air fighting is fast and furious with lots of turns and firing, but very little realism. Unless you play the game’s hardest setting you won’t be shot down by enemy fighters, although you may have the plane get damaged; the effects of that are a lot of smoke to cloud your game vision.

Overall this was a fun little game for what it is. If you want to kill a few hours and pretend you are a great pilot in the heat of WWII, this isn’t bad. If you want a realistic flight simulator of WWII combat, look elsewhere.

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