When they are at their best, video games give you a chance to experience a different life. The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific tries to put you in the jungles of the Pacific as you participate in various historic battles. What might have been an opportunity for learning (especially for teen gamers who want a break from the dusty history they glean from textbooks) turns into a brief, but tedious excursion into poor game design.

Each of the ten levels is played from a first person perspective. You carry three weapons, an automatic pistol, a submachine gun, and the utilitarian Garand M1 rifle. All have their strengths, but so long as you keep the game on the "easy" setting it won't really matter which you choose. You'll stroll through invulnerably through the levels with the bullet-absorbing power of a Schwarzenegger-movie hero.

What you won't be able to do is chart your own course. Every action is dictated to you by someone of superior rank. Most of the time this involves following that person as they repeatedly order you to, "Follow me. That's an order!" In the course of a twenty-minute mission you're likely to have the command drummed into your skull a hundred times or more. Stray too far from your commander and the game will end in failure. Stick with them and you might expire from boredom.

For some reason, the AI for the non-player characters seems to anticipate enemy attacks and then holds back from them. Perhaps the AI is afraid. While your commander stands in place and twitches your only option is to forge carefully ahead hoping to get far enough to trigger the next scripted event (at which point your commander starts barking orders again) without going beyond the invisible line which will end the game.

In addition to being ordered to "follow me", you'll be assigned other war-like tasks such as protecting a radioman as he seeks a clear spot for transmission. When you encounter mines on the trail, guess who gets to defuse them? Have a bunker that needs to be cleared? No problem, the player will do it. Is anyone here qualified to operate an anti-aircraft gun? Guess who gets to do it.

Being assigned the various odd objectives broke up the game, but it left me feeling like Cinderella except my "step sisters" all wore khaki.

Speaking of which, there's something odd about the texture on the soldiers. Instead of being fabric-covered, they appear to shine and have the look of plastic. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was fighting alongside the Army Men from Toy Story.

The environments fared better at the hands of the developers, with lush jungles and nicely textured trenches. The distant explosions were impressive and the sound gave some sense of what it must be like to be in the middle of a firefight.

Before each level, you're treated to a brief narrated video which provided context for the battle. The contrast between the grand strategy and the soldier's point of view was a nice touch and gave a little glimpse of the educational value the game might have had.

On the topic of education, it is important to note that the soldiers in this game talk like soldiers. They frequently use salty language which probably wouldn't be appropriate for younger players. The violence (as is the case in combat) is intense and personal. To their credit the developers don't shy away from showing the reality of battlefield mortality – even to the point of having scripted events in which members of the player's squad die. Still, the player is surrounded by violent death and can only succeed by dispatching vast numbers of enemy troops. Parents should carefully consider the context in which their children play the game.

Ultimately, though, it might be difficult to get young players interested. The game is simple, short, and defines success in terms of your ability to stick close to the guy giving the orders. The time it takes to play through might be better spent watching the documentaries from which the in-game footage was taken.