Soldiers will catch on fire from nearby explosions and cry out in horror, but there's very little variation in their screams. Helicopters will buzz the bunker with a distinctive chopper sound, and fighters will fly past your base with their jet engine whine. Shells hitting your bunker cause an appropriate explosive rumble, and small-arms fire ricochets off armor with a metallic patter. The weapon, vehicle, and explosion graphics are supplemented with decent sound effects, although like the rest of the game, they quickly get repetitive. And like its predecessor, Beach Head 2002 has the habit of making units pop up out of nowhere, but whether this is a graphics problem or a cheap way to keep you on your toes is unclear. Unfortunately, some parts of the game's graphics don't add up-your suspension of disbelief will falter when a jet flies into a nearby hill and out the other side. The game's animation is repetitive but otherwise acceptable. The weapon and explosion effects are fairly realistic, and the enemy units and environments look fine. Since you can't move and you can't win, your only goal is to do better than you did the game before and maybe gain access to a new weapon or enemy unit to shoot at.Īt times, the game is visually pleasing.
There is very little rhyme or reason to how these targets appear and move-the units have no obvious objective other than to destroy your bunker, and they come from all directions, giving the impression that the invasion has already taken place long ago, and you're the only survivor. There is also no hope of victory, since the game will just continually throw more enemies at you in the form of tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, airplanes, and soldiers. In this situation, there is no hope of retreat, since you can only rotate about a fixed position and shoot at moving targets. It might make a good plot for an action film, but it's not much fun as a game. The game consists of stage after stage of stationary shooting action.īeach Head 2002 gets old quickly, primarily due to its premise-you're stuck in a bunker with a few guns and limited ammunition, and there's an army of infinite size on the way to kill you. The few improvements it includes do little to address the flaws of the original game, and since the new game is just more of the same endless waves of enemies, it can't really be recommended even to those who might have enjoyed Beach Head 2000 in some way.
The new game takes the same approach, but replaces the beach environment with some rolling hills. Beach Head 2002 is an updated version of Beach Head 2000, a repetitive arcade-style shooter that lets you assume the role of a lone gunner trying to fend off a beach invasion.