Battleship

Battleship has patrolled the video gaming waters for decades, most recently via EA’s Hasbro Family Game Night. That version played it safe, delivering a faithful adaptation of the classic board game. Now Activision is navigating more treacherous seas, licensing the rights to the upcoming movie and creating a completely new action-strategy hybrid. One thing’s for sure: You won’t be shouting A5 in this one.

Activision is quick to point out that while the game is based on the film’s license, it’s not a movie-based game. Players won’t cozy up to Liam Neeson or Brooklyn Decker while battling aliens in the Pacific. Instead, developer Double Helix took the movie’s premise – aliens invading Earth and constructing a massive energy dome over the Hawaiian archipelago – and are using it as a backdrop for an unconventional first-person shooter that’s otherwise unrelated to the script.

After seeing a short sequence where our hero, Cole Mathis, storms the sands of Ni’ihau island from a landing craft, the action switches to a traditional first-person view. It looks like a typical military shooter, with Mathis ducking behind cover, taking potshots, and chucking grenades at the alien interlopers. As a member of the Navy’s Explosives Ordinance Disposal unit, he’s perfectly equipped to size up and take down large targets. Battleship’s big gameplay twist centers around all those alien vessels and Naval ships battling off the coast.

Players can switch to a command mode on the fly, which gives players a birds-eye-view of the action. (In a nod to the franchise, the in-game display is based on a grid, with intersecting numbers and letters.) From here, Mathis can command Navy ships around to provide support from sea, attack alien vehicles, and help with other objectives. Alien foot soldiers drop random tokens, which serve as power-ups in the command mode. With a few clicks, he can repair a damaged vessel or call in an artillery strike. One of the coolest tokens we saw gave Mathis direct control of a Naval destroyer for 20 seconds, letting him lay waste to aliens while temporarily doing double damage with its cannons.

From the demo, it looks as though players must maintain a solid balance between both modes of gameplay. In addition to engaging Mathis on the sands, the aliens are also hammering away at the human fleet. Ignore their dwindling health meters too long, and players will hear the demoralizing sounds of sinking ships. Staying on top of capture points at sea is also critical for earning support bonuses (and, just as important, preventing aliens from doing the same).

Battleship is certainly an unexpected take on the property. Perhaps just as surprising is that Activision isn’t adding any multiplayer modes. Instead, Double Helix is focusing on a tightly constructed storyline and gameplay progression. We’ll have to wait to see if they can deliver on that promise, but the game is definitely on our sonar for the time being.