Battle Group 2, is presumably, a sequel to Battle Group 1. A game I have not played. But I was trawling through a lot of trash in my backlog and came across this one.

This one is not trash. This one... Is not half bad! It is like Missile Command, but with a naval aesthetic, and upgradeable ships. I would link in a The Simpsons reference but the only clip I can find of Milhouse speaking the line I want is not in English.

While escorting a powerful capital ship (not really that powerful), you, the captain are suddenly attacked after blowing up a few silos. Oh, no! It is the Talon! But just who is the Talon, we just don't know. But a couple of missions later you surrender the big ship to survive.

Not sure why they didn't just kill you when they are throwing missiles and trying to bomb you as bad as they are.

Anyway, you get a new tiny little ship right away. Time to blow up some baddies.

The game is basically the Arcade Classic "Missile Command". You don't actually control the ship. You are not even the Captain. You are the Gunner. You point and shoot at the various aircraft, suicide boats, missiles, and HINDs.

Or rather, lead the shot. Shoot where they are going to be, not where they are.

To make it easier you soon can buy a support ship, with oil barrels that drop from explosions. Best not think to much on how that works. Aside from acting as a shield to the lower side (don't actually treat it like this), it comes with an additional special attack. There's a really odd imbalance where early ships are better than the mid tier ships.

For most of the game and grind, I had this set to the artillery turret. Click on it and it will fire a few shots at the most recent baddie that had the gall to appear on the main screen.

Later on swapping this out for a ship with a support choppa, or a giant Aircraft Carrier. Early on I found it best to stick with the pew pew.

Oil can also be used to purchase ship upgrades. Harder hulls to survive more hits, faster special ability recharges, or more shots on the main before you need to (auto) reload.

Being stuck on the ocean means most of the screen is blue. With occasional islands to the top and bottom of the screen. I feel these are somewhat randomly generated, or at least the only point of criticism. Attacking suicide boats will 'sail' through these islands rather than sail around them.

Your ships are larger than oil rigs. You utterly dwarf them. And as said, you explode things for oil barrels. We're not really looking for realism here, are we?

While the soundtrack is repetitive, it is not offensively so, and I did eventually mute it after 7.5 hours of play grinding out the final achievement. I do like the SFX though, explosions feel punchy enough. And the radio chatter that runs in the background, while nondescript, does give you hints on approaching craft and when your specials are ready to use again.

All in all, a solid effort. Too many budget titles have a level of jank or lack polish in some areas. The only complaint I have is that ESC will appear to pause the game, but drops to desktop shortly after. ESC=Pause has a long history, and really should not be the kill switch.

I liked this. It adds a little extra things from the Missile Command formula, is short enough and easy enough to pick up and play, and is overall a decent production.

Goes on sale for 80% off, as I type it is $2.30AUSBUX, which is well worth the value.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (War Heroes 1)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 29 January 2022
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
Processor: 2.4 GHz or equivalent processor
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 500 MB Video RAM and at least Shader Model 2.0
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 900 MB available space
Sound Card: Windows compatible sound card