The Xbox game library is a funny beast. Plenty of one genre such as racing games but then next to nothing of another such as real time strategy or flight games of any kind, simulator or arcade. There are plenty of World War 2 first person shooters available and now to plug the gap, an action packed flight game set in the very same war.

The last flying game I played on the Xbox was Crimson Skies which was pretty popular online for a while but then even with some fresh injections of downloadable content, faded into obscurity fairly quickly. I always felt this was a shame because this genre has always been a popular one with me that goes all the way back to playing F-15 Strike Eagle (by Microprose themselves!) at the arcades. I've always looked on in envy at some of the games such as the Ace Combat series on the PS2 and wondered why some obliging developer out there wouldn't make something like it for the Xbox.

Brought to us by Australian developers IR Gurus (yep, the guys behind the AFL Live series) Heroes of the Pacific (from now on HotP) is an arcade flying game set in World War II containing historical missions ranging from the attack on Pearl Harbour through to other Pacific locations such as Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Midway Island. Without giving away too much of the story, your characters brother is killed in the devastating Pearl Harbour attack that makes up the first mission and from that moment on you're set on the path of extracting revenge on the Japanese and defending all things American by shooting down as many Japanese planes as possible.

At a glace the story sounds like pretty standard revenge fare but it's actually told with a surprising amount of sincerity that's pleasingly missing the flag waving and bravado of crap films like Pearl Harbour. IR Gurus did a great job with this part of the game and the story is never shallow or gratuitous. The menus in the game have also been approached with plenty of care and feature some fantastic period artwork that looks like its come straight out of the 1940's. At first it does look a bit garish but it grows on you as the detail becomes apparent and a lot of work has gone into the presentation as the menus are very stylish and simple to navigate at the same time.

Playing through the game's campaign mode unlocks new planes and also rewards you with points that you can use to upgrade your collection. These can then be used in the instant action mode and even online over Xbox Live. The missions in the campaign mode unfortunately offered little in the way of surprises and to be honest, some were frustrating, especially the ones where you have to keep some other aircraft or your Commanding Office alive while he outruns the Japanese in his jeep. I'm pretty sure I played missions like that in Secret Weapons of Normandy and hated them then. The other frustrating part of the campaign was that throughout each mission there are checkpoints that you must reach and if you do die, you can then retry the mission from that part. These are spaced fairly well but they aren't true save points so if you quit the mission naturally you have to start it from scratch next time. Unfortunately I also encountered a glitch a couple of times with some missions telling me that I had completed them before, say, destroying all the bombers I needed to. The voice over would congratulate me, then the missions would fail because there were still bombers to shoot down. Not a game stopper but still frustrating when coupled with the inability to save your progress anywhere.

There are four types of planes that become available as you progress, Fighters, Torpedo Bombers, Dive Bombers and normal Bombers and they provide plenty of variety. Your upgrade points can be used on upgrading the armour, engine, primary weapon and secondary weapon in your planes and provides even more depth to the game that I wasn't expecting to see. The planes themselves also look very nice featuring excellent detail, great looking reflective surfaces as you fly around and the camera angles even include a cockpit view. All up there are 35 planes that can be unlocked and I was able to get most of them aside from the some that can only be unlocked by playing the game on the ACE difficulty setting. Once you've unlocked a load of planes and levels and finished the campaign, you then have loads of options for the instant action mode but it would have been good if more planes and a few extra levels were available for that mode from the beginning. A small gripe, and of course not one exclusive to HotP as plenty of games force you to play through its campaign before offering up the better vehicles, characters or levels.

As mentioned the graphics for the aircraft look great and even more so, the massive soft fluffy clouds that you get to fly them through. Screaming down in your P-40 Warhawk through the clouds to strafe bombers, at times, looks amazing but at times there is quite a bit of slowdown which was disappointing to see, especially seeing as HotP is a cross platform game so isn't pushing the Xbox to the limits at all. The ground detail looks fine as there's plenty of buildings and ground objects to strafe and check out and the levels are fairly large offering a bit of freedom to zoom around in.

The combat is generally great with bullet strikes on enemy planes easy to make out and you can also zoom in by pressing the 'Y' button on your controller. Planes break apart, leave smoke trails, explode very satisfyingly or spiral down to the ground or ocean and overall the combat can be a lot of fun, even if most of the missions don't feel that original (although they do get progressively more action packed and harder as you progress). While the game has a definite arcade angle, there is also the option to use 'simulation controls' but to me the sensitivity of the controls didn't feel any different although it enables the use of the right analogue stick in a more realistic way instead of only allowing it to control the roll of your aircraft. Quite often the controls even felt a bit too sensitive and a lot of switching between the zoomed view and back out was required to keep my bearings and take down enemy planes. To speed things up between the quiet moments there is a nice little 'Turbo' mode that, while totally unrealistic, saves you wasting time flying between mission objectives. During many of the missions you're fortunate enough to also get some Wingmen to help you out. The A.I driving them is pretty solid and orders such as Attack, Form Up, Defend (they'll go and defend friendly units) and Break (attack at will) can be given with a quick tap of the controller D-Pad.

Like Crimson Skies before it, Heroes of the Pacific also contains plenty of offline and online multiplayer modes. You can go split screen with a mate or get some system link action happening with up to 8 players. Full Xbox Live support is also included and the games I tried out were surprisingly lag free and a bit of fun. Everything works as expected, you create a lobby and set the game options, invite some friends in and get stuck into the action. Unfortunately though when the game ends, you aren't taken back to your original lobby and you have to set up a new game to re-invite all your friends into. With Xbox Live being around for years now it's surprising to see online games still suffer from glaring usability issues such as this. The standard multiplayer modes on offer are your Dogfight and Team Dogfight options but HotP offers a few extra modes with some interesting twists.

Capture the Flag is also available with each team having their own Aircraft carrier. The main goal (no surprise to long time online gamers) is to grab the other teams' flag and return it to your own base (carrier in this case) but on the way back you must also take out 3 waypoint balloons. Fox and Hounds puts one player as the Fox with the rest aiming to take him out and become the Fox for as long as possible with points awarded for every 10 seconds that you manage to stay as the Fox. The final game mode and one that deserves to be popular online is the Scratch One Flat Top mode. Again, each team has an Aircraft Carrier but the goal is to simply destroy the other teams Carrier. Sounds simple but torpedo hits do the most damage so careful plane selection and team organisation is required to work effectively. If everyone just picks fighter planes, you won't be able to damage the enemy carrier so teams need to work together with some players picking torpedo bombers or regular bombers and the rest of the team flying cover in their fighters. It's a lot of fun but in one match my team managed to hit the other Carrier with 16 Torpedos yet still failed to sink it! Still, the multiplayer modes can be a lot of fun, the only issue is finding other players.