The video game based on a film based on a board game arrives in stores all guns blazing. Dominic Sacco and Billy Langsworthy take a look.
“You sank my Battleship.”
This old phrase became a household saying after the classic naval board game first arrived in the late ‘60s.
But not content with leaving the property on toy store shelves, Hasbro has teamed up with Universal Pictures to bring it to the big screen. They’ve swapped the plastic boats, maps of holes and childish cries of “you sank my battleship” for aliens and explosions.
Activision is also grabbing a slice of the action with a video game tie-in. This mixes first-person shooter elements with strategy gameplay more commonly associated with the board game.
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Rather than stepping into the sea-soaked boots of Liam Neeson, players take on the role of demolitions expert Cole Mathis. And the beautiful briny sea is soon filled with explosions, shrapnel and ocean warfare brought about by a seaborne alien invasion, which gamers must put a stop to.
Mathis must take on aliens in Hawaii by commanding the US Navy fleet in a ‘siege on the sea’ strategy mode, while rallying the troops on land for a ‘war on the shore’ shooter experience.
Battleship the video game features a system that allows players to seamlessly switch between the battlefield and the ‘Battle Command’ map. This means they can attack aliens on the beachside in the game’s first-person shooter mode, before commanding carriers, frigates, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and the legendary USS Missouri Battleship to pummel the enemy in the waters.
Sink or swim
Players can launch air strikes, radar sweeps and send opponents to the bottom of the ocean by directing specific naval units across the map.
Hasbro says the Battleship game gives its classic property a “modern-day spin” and is confident Activision will deliver a “high-intensity thrill ride perfectly suited for today’s console owners”.
Of course, the game not only benefits from the exposure generated by the blockbuster movie, but also from the Battleship name. Board game fans and retro junkies will want a piece of the action – and don’t rule out first-person shooter players who may be interested in the run-and-gun aspect of Activision’s latest offering.
Hitting the big screen
Battleship the movie arrived in UK cinemas last Wednesday (April 11th). A fleet of ships do battle with aliens known as ‘The Regents’. It stars Liam Neeson, Rihanna, Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker and Alexander Skarsgård, to name a few.
The history of Battleship
The Battleship board game is a guessing game for two players that actually began life in the form of a pen-and-paper game in the 1930s. Today, Hasbro owns the rights to the board game, where one player must find and destroy their opponent’s ships using a special grid.
