The game that brought the WW2 naval deck to the most advanced gameplay and most stunning appearance!
1) it continues and completes the Pacific war via the single player campaign, makes it longer and more diverse, and adds an alternative Japanese campaign, which becomes fictional after several missions.
2) it includes all of the most important units developed through the whole WW2 era, and allows you to use a variety them, that was not present in the previous game. Since the previous game developed the storyline from December 7, 1941 till June 7, 1942, obviously you could not use many of the so famous units that were developed later in the war, the most obvious being the battleship, which was absent in the US forces until the battle of the Eastern Solomons in August, 1942. Not only do you get to use all those new units, but you can also unlock some uncommon, almost experimental and rarely used units, like missiles, jet fighters or human torpedoes.
So now you know that you start playing Battlestations Pacific after the battle of Midway and will go on till the end, where you need to occupy Okinawa island. There are more missions in this game than in the previous game, and when comparing the difficulty, it seems that Battlestations Pacific is somehow easier than Battlestations Midway in general sense - there are no such ridiculously hard missions like, for example, "Rendezvous At The Java Sea". Also easer is now to repair ships - simply the controls are not so sophisticated as before, and it is easier now to hit moving ships, since the targeting system feels somehow straightforward - the prediction interval has been reduced, which of course is going way from reality, but anyway... This game does not have the single player challenge room, that was present in the previous game - instead you get to play for the empire of Japan and experience the might and usability of it's famous, but not so successful units, like the Yamato battleship, Shinden fighter plane or Kaiten human torpedo carrier. Battlestations Pacific, just like Battlestations Midway, does include a training room, but it's totally different now: you just pick up any unit you like and do whatever you like with it until you "learn it through"; i will remind that in the previous game, the training room was boring and without any freedom, as you had to do what you were told to do, having a specific unit for each mini learning session. The rest has not really changed from the first game: same great game physics and dynamics, realistic unit movement, response, and weapon damage system, and of course, same reduction of artillery and flak ranges, which is good, although could have been twice as longer, since now that you have got Battleships, it really sucks that you can't use one of their key features over other ships - the far greater range. Here the range decreases too short as the enemy ships swarm towards you, and you just don't get enough time to destroy those ships, until they are in the range to fire their own shells. Lucky to compensate this, as i said, is the reduced difficulty to aim, though not that much.
Technically, obviously, Battlestations Pacific is an improvement over Battlestations Midway in both graphics and sound effects. This time the graphics look great in every spot, not only skies and models. Sound effects are more appealing now, exposing you to deeper effects of sound. Now each weapon really has it's own patterned sound - there is a big difference between blasting 14 inch and 16 inch guns for instance.
One of the most unpleasant "surprises" in the game is the horrible Japanese narration and over-voice. In the previous game the Japanese units "spoke" their own language, and though you did not understand it, it was at least appealing an felt real. Now, however, it is so messed up, that you might want to consider skipping the whole Japs campaign... US narration is not the best either, it is at times annoying, but not frustrating.
Game bugs are still present with the latest patch, though you won't really notice them if you play just casually.
Overall Battlestations Pacific brings improvements and shortcomings. Fortunately improvements win, which makes this game better than original in general way (not in selective ways) and thus establishes Battlestaitons Pacific as the greatest naval simulator as of today. Why? To compare with other great, and even more sophisticated, advanced simulators like some of the Silent Hunter games, Battlestations Pacific allows you to do much more with less complexity involved. Just the fact that it has so many types of aircraft brings to knees all other naval games.