Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII

Mad Catz, a company many recognize for making gaming accessories and peripherals, brings you its first video game offering with a WWII flight combat simulator as well as a pretty sweet flight stick.  

We played the first mission of Damage Inc. using the packaged flight combat stick, the AV8R (also made by Madcatz). After clicking through the title screen, which is nicely reminiscent of a WWII-era propaganda poster, a convincing voiceover explains our upcoming assignment on the mission select screen. We had a limited selection of aircraft to choose from, but it appears that as players progress through the missions in the full game, they can unlock more planes and upgrade previously purchased aircrafts. 

The mission starts with a brief cutscene that abruptly cuts to the player’s character, known as either “Reaper Squadron’s leader” or “pilot,” preparing to take off. Aside from the water, which looks decent, the visuals are a bit rough. 

The mission begins upon a surprisingly geometrical aircraft carrier. After taking off and listening to a bland radio conversation, Reaper Squadron’s leader proceeds to fly right through the Japanese planes guarding the small Pacific island and blows up their radar tower. 

The Japanese aircraft on the ground attempting takeoff are the next target. Apparently, those people are disposable, because the Japanese planes patrolling the skies don’t seem to care that the island is under attack by three American planes. Reaper Squadron then takes out all of the Japanese anti-aircraft emplacements, which conveniently aren’t used until after the Americans have taken out numerous aircraft and ground facilities. 

Protecting a group of bombers as they make their way to the island gives us our first real taste of Damage Inc.’s combat. The targeting reticle moves slowly and is difficult to control, even with the flight stick. In the end, we struggled with the controls more than our battle-hardened enemy pilots. 

The sluggish aiming was a problem when we were targeting enemies on the ground, but it became frustratingly difficult when facing adversaries capable of movement. The plane either reacted very slowly or overreacted to control input with no warning, allowing the enemy planes to evade us for sometimes over ten minutes. 

Damage Inc. has two options to help players avoid these problems. The first is the addition of what amounts to a nitro boost to help planes move from point A to point B much faster. The second is the ability to slow down time to facilitate aiming. While speeding up the aircraft does cut down on the time spent in transit, slowing down time to hit targets helps, but not enough to appease the fickle controls. 

Damage Inc. wouldn’t be an aerial combat game without a duel against an enemy ace, would it? Unlike average enemies, the ace specifically targeted our plane, was better at evading attacks, and had more health, as represented by a health bar. These changes led to a wonderfully lengthy game of ‘follow the enemy plane and hope your bullets eventually hit him’. 

There were a few things we enjoyed about the game. The water and smoke trails look nice, pilots eject from destroyed planes with a satisfying pop, and the flight stick controls as well as the game allows.

It’s worth reiterating that the version we played was a demo build and not the full game, so the textures and graphics may be improved and the controls could be fine-tuned. With some work, this title might pique some interest with the packaged flight stick, which works great with other flight combat games like Ace Combat.

Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII will be released August 28 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in both a bundle with the flight stick for $99.99 and without the flight stick for $49.99.