Game Reviews

Battle Supremacy

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iOS
| Battle Supremacy
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Battle Supremacy
|
iOS
| Battle Supremacy

There are times when I'm pretty sure that Sergeant Frank Shoutskowic, the name I've given to the voice who tells me how well my shots are doing in Battle Supremacy, wishes he'd been assigned to any other commander.

Trundling through a French village, the hefty tracks of my big ol' tank crushing walls and making train carriages explode, Frank lets out a weary "not even close" as I hammer the 'fire' button to try and take down a tank driven by a bot calling itself Adolf.

"Shut up, Frank," I mutter, spamming 'fire' until the dolts who share the tin can with me have managed to stuff in another shell.

This time the bipolar Frank lets out an "awesome" as the shell smashes into Adolf's tank and takes a hefty chunk out of its health bar.

Frank almost always sounds surprised when I hit things.

Tanks for the memories

Battle Supremacy is a World War II shooter that plops you into a variety of different military vehicles across three campaigns and lets you bundle and barge your way around partially destructible maps taking pot shots at digital Nazis.

It's not quite the hardcore sim that developer Atypical Games has all-but perfected with the Sky Gamblers series of flying shooters. It's still tough, but you're not expected to control each lever of the tank in the correct sequence just to get the thing started.

Floating joysticks let you move your tank around and control the direction of your turret. It automatically snaps on to bad guys that are getting close, but you can ignore the advice of your gunners and take pot shots at more distant foes if you fancy.

You can swipe a finger around the middle of the screen to move the camera, and pinch in the same place to move your view closer to or farther from your tank. Buttons on the right let you fire or zoom-in for a more precise shot.

Tank busters

The single-player game sees you completing a series of missions alongside a variety of other tank-driving men. You'll push on to beaches, storm strongholds, protect landing zones, and generally make a nuisance of yourself.

The levels are quite large, and there's some scope for changing the way you want to play, though full frontal assaults on your own usually end with a smoking wreck and a tutting Frank lamenting the fact that he ever met you.

Most of the scenery is solid, but anything smaller than your tank, and a few things bigger than it, will collapse if you prang into them. It's a shame you can't shoot holes in walls to target previously unseen enemies, but there are ways to use scenery to your advantage - or indeed disadvantage.

A collapsing tree or exploding car is the perfect way to let people know you're coming, and in multiplayer keeping an eye out for things falling over is a great way to get an early shot in.

To be Frank

There's a solid selection of multiplayer modes to sink your teeth into, and the size of the maps means there's breathing space for new players as well as plenty of scope for expert machine violence.

Battle Supremacy might not be as deep as its airborne predecessors, but it's a more accessible beast for it. There's plenty to do, see, and destroy, and a more focused campaign mode keeps the explosions ticking over.

It's not particularly fresh or innovative, but it's a solid, brilliantly put-together shooter full of pomp and silliness that's great for playing on your own or online.

As Adolf explodes, Frank lets out a hoot of "he's on fire". I'm pretty sure he's not referring to me, but I thank him all the same and start hammering the 'fire' button to try and take out the next rumbling tank that falls under our sights.

Battle Supremacy

A shooter that's a lot more hit than miss, Battle Supremacy has enough going for it to keep you playing for a good long while
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.