Battle Group is an arcade action game developed by Bane Games for iOS devices, Mac and Android and a PC version published by Merge Games. It is a top-down on rails shooter where you control the main weapons on a battleship and an allied vessel.
The story is mainly just there to loosely string together the different missions and offer a few objectives. The story involves pirate forces armed with up-to-date military hardware waging war on ocean trade routes and vessels doing as they please indiscriminately. The pirate fleets have an extremely high number and the United Nations are trying to resolve everything peacefully despite the pirate aggression. You as Fleet Commander Kelly are trying to fight off the forces that the pirates send your way as well as trying to track down and destroy their base of operations before they can do any more harm.
The main weapon you will be using tends to be a missile launcher but may be other weapons depending on which sip you use. The missile launcher is the staple gun and will provide the majority of your shooting needs. Most planes take two hits, missiles take one hit usually, though larger missiles take more and a variety of aircraft missile launchers and jeeps as well as a few other vehicles take three or more hits destroy. Secondary weapons can be used by clicking on the weapon and then dragging the targeting reticule to the desired location. Allied vessels are also controlled in the same way as secondary weapons. They tend to need a lot of direction for them to be of any use due to the way their weapons operate.
After a level is completed you are given a score and experience based on your performance in the mission. The higher the score the better you are rewarded; with three stars being the best and one star being the least you can earn for completing the mission. Stars are used to unlock vessels for you to use as well as new allied vessels, with more options for purchasing being based upon what medals you have earned. Experience is earned by all vessels including allied ones; after reaching level one with a ship you can choose to unlock one of two abilities for it. Getting level two lets you pick up the remaining ability; there is some crossover between ships but the abilities tend to be quite similar and only have a few differences.
Graphically the game is very simple and doesn’t offer much in terms of “eye-candy”; the animations are simple but in the end it all does the job. For the PC version you’d expect it to have been given a little bit of an overhaul maybe but it looks very dated because of it.Audio is pretty standard with explosions and screams as planes crash, the music is very driven on sounding like the radio and chatter on the bridge of a ship. It doesn’t stand out too much but doesn’t detract from the gameplay.
Story
The story starts off a little clichéd before turning out to be quite silly in general. It doesn’t affect gameplay at all; only making it better if anything because of the mission objectives being reasonably varied at times.
Presentation and Audio
Graphically it’s very simple which may be better for the mobile version but the PC version feels a little lacking by comparison. The sounds are pretty repetitive and the music makes very little impact when there are constant explosions as it is essentially just radio chatter and electronic noises. The voice acting is reasonable but can seem a little silly at times because of the bland dialogue and the Secretary General has a particularly bland voice.
Gameplay
Unfortunately aside from the fact that it feels as though touch interaction is the best way of playing the game it can occasionally get frustrating to play when you face the same enemies over and over again. It becomes more tedious than fun when you have to wait for waves of fast aircraft fire multiple sets of missiles against you. Some of the ships are just better than others in almost every way; this is truer for allied vessels.
Overall
The game has a few lulls in how fun the gameplay is depending on if your fleet has levelled ships up to gain new abilities but tends to be fun and a good timewaster. Unfortunately the PC version comes across as a basic game because of the visuals and the main mechanic being much more suited to touch devices.
Comments
As a game on a mobile device with touch interaction I’d definitely recommend the game as it feels more at home with that style of control. On the PC however it feels a little awkward as reaction times are slightly slower for accessing secondary weapons. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun because it is but playing with the mouse seems a little out of place. I did find that fighting the same waves of enemy’s wave after wave on some missions to be a little tedious rather than swarming keeping me on my toes. That luckily happens infrequently and only toward the last few missions.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
