Battle Valley

Copyright : Hewson | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Battle Valley is an arcade action shoot-em-up that sits you in the seat of an armour plated helicopter with missile guidance and enough weapons to blow a small hole in the world and at the same time a armour plated tank with enough fire power to knock Australia into the United Kingdom. It?s action all the way in this shoot-em-up by Hewson.

Graphics

Battle Valley looks pretty similar to the other great shoot-em-up "Silkworm" in the way that you can control either a chopper or a tank (in Silkworm this was a jeep but you get the point). Detail is a little higher than Silkworm though with a few more colours being thrown in for good measure, the downside is of course that the tank and helicopter often blend in with the only slightly darker blue sky in the background which can often lead to a little confusion.

Enemies in the game are at first few and far between but once the action starts you know you are in for a bumpy ride, oncoming attacks are pretty varied and there are a few nice special effects (such as the helicopter explosion) to add to the mix. Not bad at all.

Sound

Sound is again fairly nice, we are treated to one of the least annoying pieces of music to go along in the background during play and on the start screen. In some games the sound is often disabled if music is flowing in the background, in this case both work together well without any gaps in either the sound or the music during play. The game also maintains the speed it is meant to run at which is nice.

Gameplay

The idea is pretty simple, attack and destroy anything that gets in your way and try to return to HQ in one piece. You can either use the helicopter of the tank at the start of the game but cannot change half way through the level, those that have played Silkworm will know that in two player mode you had both on screen, sadly we couldn?t test this in Battle Valley but no doubt the game would be easier with a second player.

Silkworm is pretty tough but we would say that Battle Valley is a touch more difficult once things realy start to get going so if you can?t play Silkworm it might be worth skipping but if you completed Silkworm and want something similar then this is the one for you.