Remakes seem to be a recent trend in the entertainment industry, a trend that all too often fails to click. Whether it's a remake of an old arcade classic or a black and white movie, the end result is more often than not a bomb that reflects poorly on its predecessor. When WizardWorks announced at E3 that they were updating the classic Beachhead from the 80s, it became evident that Beachhead 2000 could be the next title to fall prey to this recent trend, and boy does it.

The concept behind Beachhead 2000 is similar to the original title. As a lone turret gunner, you are the last bastion of defence against an overwhelming onslaught of enemy fire. It's your job to fend off the waves of enemy forces coming from every conceivable direction, whether it via land, sea or air. The concept is extremely basic and repetitive to say the least. It might have worked in the 80s but that's partially due to the fact that there weren't many alternatives at the time, not to mention the original Beachhead offered a few twists. Beachhead 2000, on the other hand, offers little else than a never-ending onslaught of enemy fire. That's right, I said never-ending. Beachhead 2000 features unlimited levels of this 'pulse-pounding' action. There's no end in sight in this game. Don't get me wrong, unlimited levels done well can easily result in mindless fun. This has been the case in several of the arcade classics from the 80s. If it's done poorly though, it simply becomes an annoying game that'll quickly be deleted. As I write this review, Beachhead 2000 is en route to the dump because it fails to deliver even on the most basic of levels.

Beachhead 2000 is supposed to simulate the drama of military conflict. For starters, any country that defends their beaches with a lone gunner is one sandwich short of a picnic basket. It's pure nonsense to think that a single soldier can defend the land from such an onslaught of enemy fire. For the sake of this game though, we'll look past the lack of realism and dig into the heart of this game. What is at the heart of this game? Endless shooting, that's about it. There are a total of four different weapons at your disposal: a machine gun, an anti-tank weapon, missiles and a pistol. A pistol? Sure, that'll help. Ammunition is limited so you'll have to be a fairly accurate gunner if you wish to survive the increasingly difficult levels. The good news is that supply planes visit from time to time to save your carcass. How the supply planes survive the massacre themselves is beyond me, but once again, we'll look past the inaccuracies. The supply planes drop crates of ammo from the sky and it's your job to shoot them down in order to obtain the contents. Once you've done that, you can concentrate your fire once again on the endless onslaught of enemy fire (have I said that already?).

Graphically, Beachhead 2000 features photo-realistic 3D graphics… or so the box wishes to attest. Let me tell you guys something, I've created stickmen in Adobe Photoshop that had more creativity than these enemy troops. Whether its jet fighters, bombers, attack helicopters or land troops, they all come across extremely poorly. The terrain is absolutely horrible in all its blurry glory. The sky textures are weak and the enemy units themselves are nothing more than cardboard cutouts that make the fans in the stands of any EA Sports title look impressive. In terms of audio, the sounds feature an assortment of gunfire that seems to go on forever, just like the onslaught of enemies. The weapon fire is extremely generic and Beachhead 2000 offers little else otherwise.

I'm really not going to go on much further about Beachhead 2000, it's really not worth the time and effort let alone your gaming dollar. It's a remake and it's a budget title so it doesn't come as a surprise how poorly it turned out. For every decent budget release (New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Dirt Track Racing), there are usually a handful of bombs (Innova Disc Golf, Emergency Rescue Firefighters, Swamp Buggy, Harley Davidson) and unfortunately Beachhead 2000 falls into the later category. D-Day is putting it lightly.