An enjoyable game for dog-fighters that won't melt down your video card.
There may never have been a point in history when two aircraft as different as the Zero and the Lightning faced off in combat. Try to out-turn a Zero in a Lightning and you face certain death. But if you zoom past him, the Zero has only a split-second of shot opportunity before you're out of range. Pinch off a few well-placed shots each time and soon enough he'll go down.
Learning how to fight in each of the planes provides the bulk of the entertainment value. It's fun, to be sure, but (believe it or not) some of us have a taste for ground attack. Dive-bombing in CFS 2 is incredibly difficult, and there isn't a great variety of targets. None of these planes were designed for dive-bombing. There are dive-bombers and torpedo bombers in CFS 2, but you can't fly them.
The graphics aren't great, but the Pacific consists mostly of water (being an ocean and all), and since ground attacking isn't a focus, the few islands that are there don't need beautiful terrain.
The game is enjoyable but not great, due to its limited scope of operations. The flight models are, by far, the best feature of the game, and learning to master each one will provide many hours of enjoyment.