War Ships is a battleships game that can be played in the original style or a more modernised version that has some new twists on the classic. Read on to find out if it is a Hit or a Miss.
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You should all know how to play battleships? The basic idea of the game is for two players to place a number of varied sized ships onto a grid which the opponent can not see. Then each turn after, the player calls out a grid location to fire a missile at, the opponent must say whether or not the missile has hit a part of a ship. The grid is then marked as a hit or miss and then the other opponent takes their turn to do the same and so on. The winner is the first to destroy all their opponents fleet of ships. A very simple game but as anyone will remember from their childhood, it was a fun game!
So War Ships is a console version of the board game, no more missing pieces and you don’t need an annoying brother (or sister) to play against. War Ships supports up to four players in a combination of human or CPU AI. I have not played a four player battleships game before, not even sure it existed, but War Ships allows you to. The second main change is that each player now has a limited charge radar system which can be used when your opponent is firing missiles, if timed correctly your radar will spot the enemy missiles and destroy them with your own missiles. This gives an element of strategy as to when it should and should not be used.
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The third main change is a new type of missile, you get a special missile that can be used once per turn. Once it has hit its target it will display how many surrounding grid locations have ships in them, each one represented by a dot on the square. It reminded me a little of minesweeper with guessing how many mines were surrounding the number and again it adds a bit more strategy to the game. The three main additions over the original battleships game are good and provide a nice change if you find the original a little boring.
If you have no friends you can play with up to three CPU AI players. There is no difficulty level and the CPU AI can be very unforgiving, if they find your ship you can be pretty much certain it will be destroyed in a turn or two, they are like vultures and quickly pounce on a damaged ship 🙂
The speed of which they choose their grid locations is actually a problem, during your opponents turn your radar power recharges, so while the CPU takes a few seconds to choose you will only gain a few % of power. While you are taking your turn, it can take several seconds longer as you move the cursor and decide where you fire your missiles, this gives the opponent a lot more radar power %. I would actually advise turning off the radar when playing against a CPU as it creates a very unfair game.
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Playing against humans is more fun and while I only tried with one friend, I found the new features worked much more fairly than against a CPU opponent. You will need to send your friend(s) out of the room at the start when choosing the ship locations but otherwise it works great. I would have loved to have seen multiplayer mode over Live and it would have improved the lifespan of the game a great deal.
Graphically the game looks good, the sprites are in 3D and look detailed, the animation on the radar, explosions and missiles look the part. The music is a rousing battle style song and goes well with the theme of the game. Sound effects are done very well and the missiles firing, radar noises and sinking ships for example all sounding as they should do.
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War Ships costs 240 :MSPoints: and I think that it is OK value for money providing you have some friends to play against, playing against the CPU is nowhere near as fun. I did find the four player battles a bit confusing, with some time it is easier to understand but I think it may be a step too far which breaks the simplicity of the original game. The new missile type and radar system are great fun and are a good addition to the game if you want them, you can disable them if you do not. Overall it is a fun game and if you like the original battleships game you should have no problems with this remake.
You can find out more about the game and download the trial or purchase the full version via the Marketplace here.
Competition Time!
I have three codes to give away for War Ships. Two will be given away on Twitter and one by entering our comment based giveaway:
Code #1:
I decided to have a little fun this week with the comments giveaway so we are going to play a little game of Battleships 🙂 It is everyone against me and I am down to one more ship piece which you must find. To enter, all you have to do is reply with a grid reference from A to E and 1 to 5, for example ‘B4’ or ‘D2’. Once the deadline is over, the winner will be decided from whoever guesses the correct grid reference I chose. If nobody guess correctly then I will pick a winner at random, if two or more people guess correctly I will pick a winner at random from those people.
Code #2:
The second code giveaway is Twitter based, to enter you need to follow me at http://twitter.com/emuholic and retweet the following phrase “RT @emuholic You sunk my battleship! Win a War Ship code, follow @emuholic and RT to enter, winner chosen on Sunday. #warships #xblig“. The winner will be picked at random on Sunday after the deadline.
Code #3:
The third code will be posted to Twitter at a random time between now and Sunday 23:59:59 BST. Follow me at http://twitter.com/emuholic and keep an eye out for the code, I will give a few minutes notice before posting.
Rules:
The deadline to submit your entry for the first two giveaways is Sunday 18th October at 23:59:59 BST.
Include your correct email address in the field if entering the comment giveaway as this will be used to contact you if you win, the email address is not shown to the public.
You can enter both giveaways but only one comment and RT per person, multiple entries may be banned from this and future competitions. Anyone may enter but please remember the token may not be redeemable if Indie Games are not available in your country.
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