The island chain is rather spread out and PacSim have elected to only cover eight airports. These airports are Marshall Islands International (Majuro), Rongelap, Utirik, Mejit, Kaben, Maloelap, Ine and Tinak. In addition, not all of the islands that have these airports have been covered. I've only been to Majuro so I am unable to comment on the accuracy of the other airports.
First Impressions: Not too bad. PacSim's style makes me think of other higher end developers. The grass and the tarmac textures are quite immersive. Some of the ground textures are photoreal but are relatively low resolution.
Majuro: I'll give Majuro the most attention in this review. For the main airport, the terminal buildings and the rest of the Eastern end of the strip are pretty accurate and certainly reminded me of standing in that stinking terminal. The scenery on the landside of the terminal isn't exactly OCD like some developers go. There isn't a lot of detail along the sea wall and road that runs along the side of the strip. Getting down to the fire station and Air Marshall Islands hanger, which is where I spent most of my time assembling helicopters. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a let down. The main road runs past the airport in real life and this is replicated in the scenery except that they have the road running in front of the hanger rather than behind. In addition, the airport fire station is missing completely. This is a bit strange really considering how good the other end of the airport is.
In front of the Air Marshall Islands hanger.
The road is supposed to go behind the hanger, not in front and there is no fire station in the sim.
Excellent Eastern end and terminal.
PacSim have made the point that only the airports get any real treatment outside of ground textures. I'm disappointed by this given that each island has a fairly small land area, it would have been a good thing to give the islands themselves a bit of a spruce up.
As soon as the airport ends, so do the custom buildings.
Delap Dock (Pronounced Daylap) gets a reasonable makeover.
A rather poor interpritation of Uliga Dock. Many an hour spent standing there.
Haphazard generic autogen placement. Major landmarks like the Tide Table restaurant and the Billfish Club are present on the ground texture but are hidden under the random autogen.
Apart from the random autogen, it sort of looks the part.
Rongelap: A relatively substantial airport for this part of the world. I have seen photos of this and it looks about right to me.
Strange autogen placement again.
Utirik: Just a dirt strip with what appears to be a bar on the waterfront. My kind of place.
Mejit:
The traditional type yachts are very typical of this area.
I don't think there would be a bait and tackle shop like THAT out there.
Kaben:
There shouldn't be pools like that.
Maloelap:
Ine:
A strange airport to model. There's nothing else there.
Tinak
Probably doesn't show up that well but a flock of birds flew across in front of me.
Quite elaborate housing.
Performance: The airports aren't that complex and there isn't really much on the ground so even basic machines should be able to run this fairly well.
Conclusion: I'm a bit mixed on this. It's arguably a very good scenery package. It's just a bit unfortunate that the makers didn't elect to model the whole islands as opposed to just the airports. This is particularly true of Majuro. If one has never been to these places then this package probably looks very accurate and on a lot of levels it presents the image that one would expect. It's just a pity that what you expect isn't always the same as reality.
