Beach Head 2

Copyright : US Gold | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

You are allied commander (J.P Stryker) the youngest man ever to reach the rank of Chief Commander, you fought corageously throughout the war and have been awarded the medal of honour for your services. Your enemy is the evil Dictator, a blood thirsty, power crazed mania who fought savagely against the allies during the war. He later disappeared and formed his own renegade army, his objective is to obliterate the the forces that gave the army stinging defeat and destroy his fortress.
It?s gun shooting, bullet dodging arcade action in the follow up to one of the most talked about shoot-em-up/action games on any 8-bit machine.

Graphics

There is no doubt that the original game was a massive success and we all know that it?s very rare that the follow-up to anything ever matches the original status. Beach Head II certainly looks the part and in many ways if manages to live up to the expectations of the audience, battle stages have been completely re-written and designed to add more depth to the otherwise long-winded gameplay. Colours are a little basic though and the edges of all on-screen graphics seem a little sharp and in many places a little blocky, you?ll also notice on the first stage (see screen grab 1) that your helicopter sometimes becomes hard to see on the jungle background.

Sound

Sound is a little basic also, for a start the only in-game sound you?ll be hearing in this game is the awful (speaker noise) effect which has been placed over the gun-fire. At the end of each level (if you manage to complete them) you?ll hear a little bit of music that at first is nice but soon becomes tiresome as it cannot be skipped by any key on the board OR your joystick triggers. As people have mentioned on our boards it?s very rare that US Gold manage to get the blend of gameplay, graphics and audio correct - as such some customers simply steered away from the name "US Gold" and grabbed the next game on the shelf instead. While the graphics pretty much live up to expectations the sound is far from being pleasant.

Gameplay

Gameplay is much the same all the way through, simply avoid being shot by the guns in the lower edge of your screen and try to get as many troops from one end of the screen to the other without getting shot. Despite the levels changing design and position (horizontal/vertical) the gameplay remains the same, get your men from one end of the screen to the other.
We did find the game to quickly become boring and levels seem to be long-winded, action packed is not the best way to describe this game and having investigated it further I don?t think US Gold should put captions like that on the back of boxes unless they mean it. Because of some pretty drastic changes in the game some of you might be put off by the new style, we on the other hand actually preffered this to the original game and having never owned the original or played it on a real CPC we aren?t really speaking from experience.
Beach Head II is a reasonable attempt at a sequel to a popular game but as we say some of you might not be so impressed and the sound effects are enough to put a deaf person off for life. If you ever owned the original and found it to be of some excitement then it might just be worth the download, otherwise its probably worth skipping.