1942: The Pacific Air War could be played as a flight simulator or a wargame. A player could fight a single battle in mission mode or follow the war in Tour of Duty mode.
In Tour of Duty mode, a player managed his fleets and air bases on a strategic campaign map. When aircraft engaged in battle, the player could choose to "jump" into the cockpit of any aircraft in combat.
The game also featured a fairly advanced recording and editing tool allowing the player to film a mission after its completion. The player could use any number of cameras and place them anywhere in the scene. One could also scrub the timeline back and forth and make edits as one saw fit. This often overlooked tool, rare at the time, was a very popular feature and allowed users to share combat sequences with other players using a special format
Source: Wikipedia, "1942: The Pacific Air War," available under the CC-BY-SA License.
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This Gold release included the original 1942, The Pacific Air War game plus additional scenario upgrades (6 new aircraft), 2 new theatres (Phillipines and New Guinea), head to head play, over 300 added single player missions, and a multimedia addition with real film footage and period audio. Some of these upgrades were previously released on the 1942, The Pacific Air War Scenario expansion disk. Note that the original game and expansion were DOS based.