Battle Squadron
Reviewed by Inkhands
I've never been terribly good at the genre of games known as
the shooters. I just absolutely can not find my way through
those games and I suppose they simply require more skill
than I have. Maybe I don't think fast enough or maybe my
reflexes aren't fast enough. Or maybe I just pick the
hardest ones to play. Keep in mind that I have played
through some shooters in my life, so they are not all
impossible to beat for me.
For me Battle Squadron isn't as difficult as some other
shooters were for me, but this wasn't an easy game. Maybe
more experienced players can get through this game, but for
me all the enemies just absolutely pummeled me and my little
weak ship.
This game is set in the future and it gives you the story in
an opening sequence. It gives you the stardate that this is
happening on. Apparently Earth has been in conflict with a
group known as the Barrax Empire, which want to rule the
entire universe. A couple of Commanders were on their way
back from a successful mission on another planet when they
were kidnapped by a large Barrax airship and taken to a
planet named Terainia. Your mission in this game is to make
it to planet Terrainia and rescue the Commanders.
Along the way you pick up some powerups that will allow your
ship to shoot out of the back and front of the ship. There
are other powerups that do other things to upgrade your
weapon. Such as three or four fireballs that will engulf a
good portion of the screen in streams of flames. None of
these weapons are of much use, but there is one in
particular that is a necessity. It's called a nova smart
bomb and you get three of them per life. One of these will
easily take out all the enemy ships on the screen and their
missiles. It's a good idea to use these instead of saving
them, because one hit to your ship will end that turn and
then you lose whatever smart bombs you had on that turn, and
instead start back at three. There is also no way to require
extra smart bombs along the way. When you lose either a ship
or a credit you do start back in the same position you were
in, so you never have to start the stage over. The first
stage has a couple of places you can enter the planet at
which is shown to you by the words "Enter Here" in big
white letters. If you miss the first one you can always
enter on the second one. This changes the second stage a
little and entering the second way was easier than the first
for me.
This game is for one or two players and you can change a few
options. Such as you can set the difficulty at either easy,
normal, or hard. You can select how many credits you will
receive between either 1, 2, or 3 and how many lives you are
granted per credit between either 1, 3, or 5. You can also
select the maximum amount of enemy bullets on the screen at
any time between either 8, 12, or 16 bullets and the maximum
speed of these bullets between either 75, 100, 150, 250, and 400.
A couple of things thrown in to make things more difficult
is the fact that occasionally there will be an enemy ship
that will be invisible for the most part, and only flash
occasionally. When it's invisible you can see the outer
linings of the ship, so if you have a sharp eye or just get
lucky you can see it's location. It's difficult to avoid
these and all the bullets that are coming out at the same
time. Another factor that adds to the challenge of this game
is that on some levels the view of your ship is obstructed
by objects that are hanging over the action. For example if
you are flying in the center of the screen on a level, there
is a good chance you won't see it for the large red plant
that is also in the center of the screen, but higher up that
you are. You can't fly over this, so you have to fly on the
sides, which of course is where most of the enemies are
located. If you try to fly in the center then there's a good
chance your ship will be blown up by a bullet you didn't
even see. So the fact that sometimes you can't see enemy
ships or even your own ship makes this a very difficult game.
I should also bring up that this is a vertical shooter,
which of course means you fly from the bottom of the screen
to the top, instead of left to right. I'm sure most people
reading this already knows what a vertical shooter is. The
graphics in this game are mostly done in pale colors, such
as brown and gray, so there really isn't anything very
colorful about the game. Neither your ship nor the enemy
ships are well detailed. Most of the bullets that fill the
screen look very much alike. There isn't a lot of explosions
in the game, except when you do use a smart bomb and it
blows up everything on the screen. Even then nothing
spectacular is shown. The graphics are not bad in this game,
just not really outstanding either.
There is one song that plays through the game. It starts at
the beginning of the game over the title screen and doesn't
stop during the action later in the game. It's a tense,
pounding song, and it sounds very serious and deadly. If the
music is there to add to the tension of the game, then I
think for the most part it succeeded. The effects are just
of explosions and bullets and nothing really to note about
the effects other than that. The sound is okay in this game.
The control is alright as well. It's easy to move your ship
around. One button fires the normal shots and the other
takes care of the smart bombs. The ship doesn't move fast,
but it moves fast enough to allow the bullets coming at you
to be avoidable for the most part.
I already discussed the challenge of the game. If you do
happen to make it through this game, I seriously doubt
you'll find the replay value to be very high. There are many
many enemies to shoot and many bullets to avoid. This isn't
an easy game and the replay value isn't very high. The fun
factor isn't all that high either. It's just a little too
hard to get anywhere and a little too frustrating to be hit
by a ship you couldn't even see to be much fun.
Overall, this is just a little too challenging for me.
Others might find this game easier than I did and therefore
they may enjoy it more. For me though I think I'll stay away
from this one for a while. It requires more patience than I
have to give. If it didn't try my patience so much then I'd
probably enjoy it more.
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 6/10
Gameplay - 7/10
Control - 7/10
Challenge - 8/10
Fun Factor - 7/10
Replay Value - 5/10
Overall - 7/10
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