Parent's Guide: Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers is a flight sim set in the Pacific theatre of World War 2, in the middle of the conflict between the air and naval might of the US and Japanese forces. With a selection of planes to choose from, your child will sign up with either the US or Japanese forces, and take on a variety of missions, from reconnaissance runs, to daring torpedo runs on enemy aircraft carriers, bombing runs on bases, and frantic dogfights in the skies.

While flight sims have a reputation for being rather complex, or even inaccessible, Pacific Carriers is anything but. Choose the Arcade control scheme, and the game will simplify the controls as much as it can, making the game a lot more forgiving, and leaving you to concentrate on the important parts - like dodging the enemy planes. While you can still take off and land on aircraft carriers (the coolest part of any Pacific flight sim), when playing on Arcade, you can't stall, there are no red outs and black outs, and with a choice of difficulty levels, you can tweak the game's difficulty to suit.

While an extra emphasis on the history of the missions would have been appreciated, if you have a budding young pilot, or a child with more than a passing interest in World War 2, Pacific Carriers could well be worth checking out, along with similar games like Birds of Steel, or IL-2 Sturmovik, if you haven't already.

In terms of Questionable Content, Birds of Steel has little for parents to be too concerned about. Although it's a game that revolves around shooting down planes, blowing up ships, and attacking enemy bases, there's nothing in the way of attacks on people. The only thing parents may want to know about is the use of occasional moderate swearing, with the word "b*stard" being thrown around more than once - although that is as strong as it gets.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360