Video Gaming News - April 2004

Los Angeles, CA (April 19, 2004) - Encore today announced that it has reached an agreement with Melbourne, Australia-based developer IR Gurus to publish Heroes of the Pacific for the PlayStation 2, the Xbox, and Windows PC.

From Encore:

Beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor, this flight combat game puts players in the middle of some of the most intense naval conflict in WWII's Pacific Theater. This epic story unfolds through 30 missions taken from real events of the U.S. Navy's campaign in the Pacific, in hotspots like Midway Island, the Coral Sea, Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. Throughout the game, players will pilot a variety of aircraft that were integral to the war effort in the Pacific, including the Grumman F4F Hellcat and F6F Wildcat, the Douglas SBD Dauntless, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair.

"Publishing Heroes of the Pacific represents a significant move forward in shaping Encore's long-term business strategy," says Michael Bell, Encore CEO. "We're confident in the ability of IR Gurus to deliver an experience that's incredibly immersive and fun, and a game that will establish new benchmarks in the flight combat genre."

Heroes of the Pacific boasts an impressive core engine, with some battles featuring over 300 planes on screen, each with full AI and dogfighting physics. Planes, ships and environments are fantastically detailed, with some models comprised of as many as 30,000 polygons, in addition to realistic and dynamic 3D water effects. In the single player game, missions can include up to 32 wingmen, all controllable through an innovative, fast-access menu system.

"The large scale aerial battles and dogfights were arguably the most important part of the U.S. victory in the Pacific Theater, and no game has really addressed it to date," says Ben Palmer, Technical Director for IR Gurus. "With Heroes of the Pacific, our goal is to put players in the cockpit of some of the greatest WWII fighter planes in some of the most decisive battles of the war, and deliver an experience that clearly establishes this title as the next marquee flight combat game."

The single player campaign is complemented by split-screen multiplayer as well as online multiplayer on console (including Xbox(tm) Live) and online and LAN multiplayer for the PC. Heroes of the Pacific is scheduled to ship in Winter of 2004, and will be shown for the first time at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on May 12-14. For more information on the game, visit the website at www.heroesofthepacific.com.

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