Pounding Private Ryan - The View From The Bunker In Beachhead 2000

Now I know how Major Werner Pluskat felt. He is the German officer in the The Longest Day who looks out of the slit in his concrete bunker at dawn on June 6, 1944 and spies the Allied invasion armada - heading straight for him.

That, in one line, is what Beachhead 2000 is like. You are the guy in the bunker. The whole Allied armada, with all its ships, planes, tanks and soldiers - and more - are coming right at you.


A Phantom goes down in flames.	No fly zone.

A First Person D-Day-Type Shooter

This game is NOT a strategy game. It is a first-person shooter. It is an especially appealing first-person shooter to wargamers because of the topic. Beachhead 2000 feels like D-Day, looks like D-Day and plays like D-Day - but to call it a D-Day game is not entirely accurate or fair. The preamble in the start up screen cautions that this is not intended to be a simulation of any invasion, past, present or future, and that "no real army or nation" is represented or meant to be represented by the characters in this game. Beachhead 2000, the designers point out with painstaking political correctness, is "just a game."

Yeah, right. I don't believe it either (but maybe their lawyers made them put that in).

The Invasion Is HERE!

Beachhead 2000 is set in - well, 2000 - not 1944. This means that instead of facing P-47 Thunderbolts, Sherman tanks and a lot of guys with M-1 rifles, you are facing Phantom jets, T-80 main battle tanks and a lot of guys with M-16's. The invaders also have Apache gunship helicopters and occasional flights of B-52 strategic bombers, and some of the infantry ride ashore in M-113 armored personnel carriers. At the "original" D-Day, the Allies had paratroopers (although these had the good sense to drop "strategically" behind the beaches). Here the invaders can drop down from Chinook helicopter troop carriers - and they land right in your face, hurling grenades and sputtering submachine-gun as they come.

All things considered, Major Pluskat had it a little easier than you will when you defend your beachhead.

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