GDC 07: Attack on Pearl Harbor First Look

CDV is showing off its newest game at the Game Developers Conference, an action arcade air-combat game called Attack on Pearl Harbor, and as you can probably guess from its name, the game is set in World War II. This isn't a serious flight simulation as much as it's an action game that happens to feature airplanes, and it's being aimed at veterans with a fond memory of such classics as Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

Attack on Pearl Harbor is set in the days leading up to the devastating Japanese attack on the Hawaiian naval base and the weeks afterward, though it probably won't feature other major battles, such as Midway or the Coral Sea. You'll be able to play as either a Japanese or American pilot in the campaign, and at your disposal will be a stable of historically appropriate aircraft. While the game isn't a hardcore flight sim, it will try and capture the basic characteristics of each aircraft. For instance, the Japanese Zero will be nimbler than American fighters, but the latter will be more durable.

The controls are very user friendly, and while you can plug in a flight stick or a game controller, you can also use the mouse and keyboard. In the case of the latter, the W and S keys control speed while the mouse serves as the flight yoke. With a little practice, we were dogfighting and shooting down Japanese fighters in little time. Everything in the game has a Hollywood feel to it, so during battle the sky will be full of planes, while you can also blow plenty of stuff up on the ground using rockets and bombs. Attack on Pearl Harbor will also feature multiplayer dogfights in addition to its single-player campaign.

All the action takes place in third-person, so you won't sit in the cockpit but you will be able to see your plane as it maneuvers. Different cameras let you shift your point of view around so you can get a wing view, a chase view, and so on. The visuals are pretty, with plenty of smoke trailing from damaged planes and glorious explosions that fill the screen, though they don't seem too demanding, considering that the game was running on a laptop. The game is almost done, and CDV plans to put it out on shelves this June.