Battleship Live

Despite a few electronic glitches, our testers raved about how much they love playing this new tower controlled electronic Battleship game. Like earlier Electronic Battleship games, this one is accompanied by urgent battle sounds.  What's different, is the centre tower with its Motion Vision Play technology (an infrared motion detection and control system) that controls the game, keeping track of each players options, hidden mines, etc. It also introduces a number of random events during the game - like a Tsunami wave or a sudden typhoon. As well, it gives each of your ships a special power - like your battleship with its cruise missile that can sink a ship with just one hit. You can use each power only once during the game, the question is when best to use it? Wait too long and your opponent may well sink your ship and its unused special power with it. 

Our favourite feature is the spy plane which soars along the oval track into enemy territory where it reports on the number of enemy ships in the zone where it stops. But if you flip it too hard, it will fly past the enemy and inadvertently report on your own ships.

The tower certainly adds interesting dynamics to the game, but it does rely on on players to pay attention and move carefully so that the Tower "sees" and registers the correct moves. With it's actual, right-in-front-of-you board game set up, it has its own kind of appeal - maybe even cooler than an electronic hand held game, although perhaps not quite as easy-to-use, or reliable.