In some games, you pilot a World War II fighter, riddling enemy aircraft with machine-gun fire as the skies erupt with flames and smoke. In others, you maneuver a battleship across the waves, avoiding oncoming torpedoes while volleying artillery fire toward ground installations. And in still others, you command entire battles by issuing orders to dozens of units, weighing the various strengths and weaknesses of each. In Battlestations: Pacific, you do all of these things during the course of a single mission. Not only does the game execute each element exceedingly well, but it also balances them with precision, leading to enjoyably chaotic battles that stop just short of being overwhelming. By addressing the problems of 2007's Battlestations: Midway and expanding its scope, developer Eidos Hungary delivers a highly appealing experience that overcomes its pacing difficulties with sheer variety and practically endless replay value.

Battlestations: Pacific begins where its predecessor left off, depicting the United States' wartime operations in the Pacific Theater, though this time, it lets you experience history from both sides of the coin. Actually, in the case of the Japanese campaign, you'll explore an alternate history in which the Japanese expand their empire across the greater Pacific after destroying Pearl Harbor. Both the American campaign and its counterpart eschew an actual story, limiting narrative exposition to prebattle mission briefings and sepia-toned cutscenes made to look as if they were culled from old film footage. This History Channel-inspired method of storytelling works just fine, though the accompanying dialogue, especially that of the American campaign, is stilted and awkward, and the voice acting is at best amateurish--and at worst, deeply embarrassing.

These are minor gripes in a game with such lofty ambitions, and it's a wonder that Battlestations: Pacific offers so many different types of gameplay and delivers them so well. You'll spend a good amount of time in the cockpit of a fighter or bomber (perhaps enjoying the new cockpit view), laying waste to enemy aircraft, launching torpedoes into battleships, and pelleting PT boats with machine-gun fire. It's a shame that a more standard flight-control scheme, such as that used in the Ace Combat series, isn't an available option. However, once you get used to the controls, you'll find that Battlestations: Pacific offers a tight and enjoyable flight-combat experience that is as exciting as any arcade sim. From the B-25 bomber to the speedy F4U Corsair, each plane feels good to fly and appropriately powerful. Likewise, the responsive controls make both aerial battles and bombing runs equally rewarding, especially when you lock the camera onto your payload and watch it slam into the target.

However, Battlestations: Pacific is not a one-trick pony. Flight combat is only one piece of this complex experience, and unless the mission shoehorns you into a single craft, you can switch between any active units at will. This lets you jump quickly into the hot spots in which you're most needed and exercise your combat prowess in the skies, amid the ocean waves, or underwater. Indeed, naval combat offers another satisfying slice of action, and the sheer variety of aircraft that you can pilot is matched by the large number of ships at your disposal. Destroyers such as the Japanese Akizuki are equipped with artillery, antiaircraft turrets, and torpedoes; during the heat of battle, you will find yourself switching between them often. Watching a target battleship begin to flame and smoke during a protracted battle is rewarding, and the loud booms of volleyed artillery make these battles pack even more punch. And just as with aerial bombing runs, locking on to a torpedo and following it to its destination is a terrific way to experience the payoff for a well-aimed shot.

Patrol boats may be fast little buggers, but they're no match for your fighters.

Submarines fill out this impressive variety of units at your command. They demand more patience than their other naval brethren but also present their own intriguing tactical concerns. You can surface if you need to exercise some artillery power (or if you need to refill your oxygen reserves), but doing so leaves you incredibly vulnerable. At a midlevel depth, you can raise your periscope to help you survey your surroundings and properly aim your torpedoes, but you risk damaging the scope should a ship pass overhead while it's extended. If you need to completely escape the enemy's notice, you can submerge even further. This makes submarines perfect for hit-and-run techniques, though they are vulnerable and require more micromanagement than other units. Submarines are a great addition to large battles, but on their own they aren't much fun to maneuver, which makes sub-based missions slow-paced and boring, such as one in which you infiltrate an Australian harbor. In fact, the Japanese campaign in general is very slow to get moving, and even later missions often spend too much time forcing you to control a specific unit.

The best missions are those in which you must coordinate full-scale attacks on land bases to capture them. Once you're managing a large force of aircraft, ships, and submarines, the excitement levels rise exponentially. You can switch easily from unit to unit using the D pad, or you can use an overhead tactical map to switch simply to a unit caught in the heat of battle. You'll be spending a lot of time gazing at battles from this view, issuing attack commands and creating waypoints for your units from above. Fortunately, friendly AI is terrific, acting appropriately in most situations and avoiding sure death unless you command them otherwise. However, the player is still almost always more capable than the AI, so if a group of units is in trouble, jumping behind the helm of a battleship and pounding the enemy with artillery and torpedoes will help extricate you from the sticky situation. Battlestations: Pacific strikes a pleasant balance between strategic control and heated action by weighing the effectiveness of the AI with that of the player, which in turn means that you must switch from one view to the other, and from one unit to another, with frequency.