Beach Head 2002 – PC – Review

BH 2002 is a fast paced shooter that puts you in sand bagged bunker shooting
your way through the enemy forces that are trying to blow away your cozy little
nest. The game idea is very simple and clear. You defend your command post from
enemy invasion. Hold on to your post and keep the enemy at bay for as long as
possible to score the highest number of points and to advance to higher levels
in the game.

At your disposal are four basic weapons: A M60 machine gun, an AA machine
gun, an AT cannon, and the all-powerful Vulcan gun. You will also have a limited
number of heat sinking missiles, a mortar, a flare pistol for night missions,
and a 45 pistol. The game starts out with a limited supply of ammo that should
be enough for the player to successfully complete each mission. There are some
much needed ammo drops that give the player more ammo, missiles, mortars, and
health if the player can accurately shoot them out of the sky.

The enemy consists of fighters, Attack helicopters, troop-helicopters,
transport aircraft, Armored personnel carriers, tanks and soldiers. May not
sound like much, but a combination of all of them at you at once will have the
gamer yelling "INCOMING" in no time.

This title will have the player comfortable with all the controls in just
minutes. You are not bogged down with a bunch of confusing options or mission
objectives. Basically just shoot anything that crosses your path, but watch out
when you call in an air-strike on your position, you don’t want to shoot down
your own bombers.

What I liked about the game was its simplicity. It only took minutes to get
everything down pat not to mention a very fast install. Once you install the
game, you do not need the disk again. So there is no fumbling through your
software library to find it. Also only 90MB is needed on the hard drive so it’s
not a memory pig. You can progressively go through missions without riding the
save key. But you will need to save the game if you want to quit the game for a
later date.

I was disappointed that the game did not offer any difficulty options. Though
the game is said to have increasingly difficult missions I did not find this
always the case. I will say this. The latter missions after 60 or so did get
pretty difficult. Even though there are 108 missions, once you have finished the
game there is nothing more. But for the money you can’t beat it. The only
variance was day and night missions. The terrain was always the same. The only
difference was the onslaught of enemy forces. This became quite old after 20
some missions.

I believe that a small niche of gamers will find this game simply awesome. If
you are looking for something you can immediately just throw in the drive and
start playing this is it. If you are looking for re-playability, you may want to
pass on this one.

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Install: Easy
Really quick and only 90MB of hard drive space is needed

Gameplay: 8
Easy interface, 108 missions (wow that’s a lot)

Graphics: 7
Not to shabby, but would have liked a bit more variety

Sound: 7
Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either

Difficulty: 6
Though the latter missions are quite difficult, there are no difficulty
options

Concept: 6
Just aim and shoot….that’s basically it

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall: 7
This will appeal to a small niche of gamers