Pacific General Download (1997 Strategy Game)

*Pacific General is like a sister game to @SSI's *Allied General and *Panzer General, the original 5 Star Series games that created the powerful engine, with some Far Eastern refinement and improvements. This military epic allows players to command the allied forces, including the Americans, English or Chinese, or those of the Emperor of Japan. Like the actual war, the fierce Japanese bit for expansion starts well before the bombs landed on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and begins with the Japanese invasion of mainland China in the late 1930s. The Rising Sun rises over Asia and then to heads eastward towards the United States. Like previous 5 Star Generals, *Pacific General can be played as a continuous campaign or as individual scenarios and battles.

The turned based system works well, allowing players to move, engage in combat and keep their units well supplied. *Pacific General's AI makes a worthy opponent with both the allied and Japanese forces. In addition, wargamers can play head to head via modem or over a network for the added challenge of trying to match wits with another live player. Like *Allied General, victory is determined by land captured and/or held during the battle as well as losses to each side's forces. This campaign in the Pacific also adds specialized naval combat rules for capital ships, aircraft carriers and air patrol. Night scenarios have been included to better reflect the war in the Pacific, where the Japanese often engaged in battle during the night.

Would be MacArthurs and Yamamotos can take part in a full war campaign or play individual scenarios. When the world has been conquered, players can continue the action with home made battles. The battle generator allows players to create their own unique scenarios, and this is not limited to just actions in the Pacific theater of operations either. The generator incorporates maps and units from *Allied General and *Panzer General as well, allowing imaginative what-if scenarios almost anywhere in the world! Pacific General earns high marks for the attention to detail of units available when using the generator. In addition, players can set starting prestige, which controls the number of units that players can purchase and use as reinforcements, as well as the stance of computer players. Computer armies can be set very aggressive or defensive, making each battle even more unique and increasing the re-playability of each scenario.

*Pacific General can get bogged down like the Marines at Iwo Jima at times in some of the larger battle scenarios. Like most turned based strategy games, play can drag as the computer-controlled forces make all their moves. Players should also carefully monitor their own units to make sure that none have been overlooked, because these forces will not ask for orders and instead hold their position ("Damn Sarge, maybe the General wants us to move!"). While they do change shade slightly, many a general has forgotten to give orders to that one unit that somehow could have changed the course of the battle!

Graphics: Decent board game style graphics

Sound: Limited sound effects

Enjoyment: Not as powerful as Panzer General

Replay Value: The war needs to end

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Pacific General have also downloaded:
Allied General, Panzer General, Panzer General 2, Civil War Generals 2, Panzer General for Windows 95, People's General (a.k.a. Dynasty General), Panzer General 3: Scorched Earth, Robert E. Lee: Civil War General