Beach Head II

US Gold, 1985

Controls

Aim of the game

Game play

1. Parachute Assault - Allied troops are airdropped into the battle zone from a helicopter. Pressing fire drops a soldier, but if the helicopter is too low for the chute to open, the soldier will not live to tell the tale! On landing, the soldiers make a dash for the nearest wall, but they must brave machine-gun fire from a gun turret controlled by the Dragon. However, the machine gunner is hampered by the fact that it takes time for him to react and turn the gun on the troops.
2. Frontal Attack - Once all the men are hiding behind the walls at the top they have to make their way to the bottom of the screen, avoiding the gunfire. The edges of the walls flash in a cycle along the edge of the line. Pressing fire brings a man out, and you must control him as he runs down to the next section of wall. From the third wall, nearest the gun turret, the troops must be manoeuvred to the bottom of the screen. The control method is the same as before, except that pressing fire lobs a grenade roughly in the direction of the gun turret - you might get lucky and destroy it. Pressing fire twice when you select a wall sends down a computer- controlled soldier who is useful as a decoy!
3. Protect Hostages - You must protect a group of hostages from the now-desperate enemy forces. The Allies have captured a gun turret which can be used against the enemy attacks. The hostages run across the screen from left to right and have to face four types of enemy attack: a soldier drops stones from the top of the wall the hostages have to walk beneath; a tanks rolls on from the right and squashes anything in its path; an armoured car drives from the left, firing a machine gun; and enemy troops lay mines, popping up out of trapdoors (!) to lay them. All of these obstacles can be shot by your turret to safeguard the hostages' passage. If you shoot a hostage by mistake it only stuns him, but this could give the enemy the opportunity to kill him.
4. Evacuate Hostages - Having rescued the hostages, you must ferry them to safety in four helicopters that fly over a vertically-scrolling landscape. Tanks and guns placed on the terrain try to shoot your 'copters down; the difficulty of the terrain is decided by the Dragon before this section starts.
5. Showdown - Commander Stryker gets to meet the Dragon in face-to-face combat. The two opponents stand opposite each other on parallel platforms on either side of a river. The idea is to hit the other man with poonta sticks - javelins, in effect - until he falls into the water. Each time a combatant is hit three times he takes a fall and there are five rounds to be fought before the game is won - or lost.

Comments

Rating

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Keys