E3 2012 Preview: Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII

During E3 2012, we at GodisaGeek had some hands-on behind closed doors fun with a pretty damn exciting title from Mad Catz. Yes, the same Mad Catz who design your favourite headsets and other gaming accessories. They’re publishing games now, and this is a title you should be keeping an eye on.

Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII sits somewhere between an arcade shooter and flight simulation. It has just enough realism to keep it fun and is jam packed full of planes, different scenarious and objectives, with enough weapon variety to keep the things fresh, from mission to mission. The two main game modes offer a different play style: Simulation Mode is designed to be played with a flight stick, whereas Arcade Mode plays really well with a pad.

There are a couple of unique features that set this game apart from the competition, the one that drew my attention was the on-the-fly speed alteration. If you whack the throttle gauge to full up, you’ll engage “war speed”, which will enable you to temporarily speed up time a little, in order to cut out any excessive flight time. Slide the flight gauge down the other way and you’ll enter a sort of bullet-time – slow motion – which is ideal for locking on to the plane in front to take them out.

The game is hitting shelves for around $50 standalone, or $89.99 for the game and stick bundle. The AV8R Flight Stick was built from the ground up for bundling with the game; available for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Of course the flight stick will also work with other aviation titles.

Features:

• 3 buttons, realistic trigger and POV analog stick
• Removable handle provides convenient storage
• Integrated throttle enhances realism
• Aircraft-inspired toggle switches
• 3-position mode switch instantly triples button actions
• Powerful ST programming software adds more complex commands to each button

Not to mention a rather cool custom decal kit, to decorate your stick just as the pilots did their planes in WWII.

Wake Island

The first attack on Wake Island began on December 8, 1941 – the day after Pearl Harbor – and was successfully repelled by US forces occupying the island. A secondary attack occurred on December 11, but a small force of American soldiers managed to once again fight the Japanese off. The island finally fell on December 23rd, when a superior Japanese military invaded with a force that greatly outnumbered the Americans. More than 700 Japanese were killed during the attacks, while only 52 US military personnel lost their lives.

J7WI SHINDEN

The Shinden – or ‘Magnificent Lightning’ – almost reached full production during World War II. The total flight time of prototypes was limited, due to only two prototypes available for testing. A jet powered variant was planned, as part of an adaptive engine design philosophy, but never got past the blueprint stage.

This short range interceptor was designed to defeat the B-29 Superfortress bombers that pummeled the Japanese islands. It was estimated that if the war continued, more than 1000 of these interceptors could have been produced between March 1946 and April 1947.

The game will be released in a few weeks, check out the website, DamageInc.com for more info. Stay tuned to GodisaGeek.com for the latest news on the title.

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