Some of the most compelling games are often the simplest, and games don’t get much more basic than the age-old game of Battleships.
The idea might be as old as the hills, but Russian developers Intorine have souped up the interface (supporting 320×320 and 320×480 screen resolutions), lobbed in a bucketful of attractive graphics, added some satisfying explosions and made the thing multiplayer.
Sink! Kill! Destroy!
You can either play the game against a computer opponent or do battle with another human – locally, via Bluetooth or over an Infrared connection.
As in the time-honoured game of Battleships, your aim is to guess where your opponent’s ships are lurking by dropping bombs on squares on the screen.
If you miss, you get a splashy sound (and quite possibly the derision of your chum across the room) and if you hit the target you get a gratifying kaboom (with the option to shout and jeer at your opponent’s misery).
We tested Sea War on a pair of Treo 650 smartphones and found it worked more or less flawlessly, although if we drifted a bit too far out of range the game would lose the connection.
Sad to say, we found ourselves “testing” the game for a considerable length of time as we vied for the top slots in the high scores table.
Our opinion
Maybe it’s because we’re easily pleased by simple things, but we got enormous pleasure playing cross-office Sea War tournaments. It’s a whole load of fun.
It’s not a bad single player game either, although the computer opponent sometimes plays like it’s imbibed strong drugs.
Either way, for a price tag of absolutely nothing, this game’s a great time-waster and an absolute winner in our book. We love it!
Features: 70%
Gameplay: 85%
Graphics: 75%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 90%