I’ve tried 3 times to start this post, and somehow I just can’t seem to find a way to express my elation over having just played Battlestations Pacific on the Xbox 360. The game takes the incredibly addictive foundation of its Midway predecessor, and polishes it to a high shine, with better textures, graphics, and effects.

Check out all the specifics, after the jump.

Eidos also beffed up the single player side of the game, with more than double the number of missions than were included in Battlestations Midway. 100 war machines ranging from those that float to those that soar inhabit this brave new world, set in the Pacific Theater during WW2.

The developers paid a lot of attention to the community over the past two years of development, and the result is a much more approachable control interface, and tutorials that aren’t a cure for insomnia. Also gone are the stalemate battles that occasionally occurred when both sides had exhausted their air fleets and had to resort to ramming their carriers together.

Also new are the Kamikaze aircraft. While a lot of people took pride in smashing their ammo-empty planes into their targets in the first game, I am told by the developers that it actually didnt do anything. This time around there ARE aircraft with special loadouts that CAN be used for kamikaze attacks. One-way flight to a destroyer anyone?

A newer map with health and repair status indicators has been added to help better manage your units, and throttle settings for aircraft have been sharpened to give you a bit more fine control over your speed.

Overall, this pre-alpha build of Battlestations Pacific definitely woke up my inner admiral, and I can’t wait until early 2009 to form up the fleet and kick some ass.

We have a video coming for this, stay tuned!

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