- Ah, the South Pacific seas... warm sun, clear skies, crystal waters... could you ask for anything more? Why, yes, add two islands obsessed with destroying each other's palm trees and you've got yourself one explosive recipe for fun!
Island Wars is a Competitive Multiplayer Shoot 'Em Up, developed by InterAction Studios for the PC in 1999. It's split into three rounds, where each player has an island with three palm trees on them, and each round is split into three phases. In the morning, the attacking player controls an aircraft that will attempt to bomb the defending island's palm trees, while the defender uses a cannon to shoot it down. At noon, it goes vice versa. In the evening, both players control planes that will try to shoot each other down instead. At the end of 5 days, the player with more points wins.
A sequel, Island Wars 2 was released in 2006, with new game modes, more powerups, and better graphics. The new Co-Op Multiplayer Invasion Mode pits one or two players sharing an island, where an invading force is attempting to destroy the island's palm trees. The first game can freely downloaded here
, and a sequel can be bought at the same place.
The first game has also been ported to the iOS and Android devices in 2011, with the sequel following a year later.
This series contains the following Tropes:
- Asymmetric Multiplayer: Subverted. In the Morning phase, while one player uses an aircraft and the other uses a cannon, both of which play very differently, the roles get reversed during the Noon phase.
- Bubble Gun: One of the weapons in Invasion Mode, it acts as a rapid-fire, pseudo-Spread Shot that also moves quickly, but deals very weak damage per bubble.
- Cool Airship: The bosses in Island Wars 2's Invasion mode.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Island Wars 2's Invasion Mode pits both Players 1 and 2 against enemies instead of each other.
- Death from Above: Several mooks in Invasion Mode will attack from the air, these include robotic drones, hot air balloons carrying bombs, guided bombs, and even kamikaze bombers.
- Destructible Projectiles: All enemy projectiles such as bombs and missiles can be shot down and destroyed. This makes sure you're able to protect your Palm Trees.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: Or more like non-hardest mode mockery. Your maximum ratings are limited by difficulty, and in order to get 100%, you must play on the hardest difficulty.
- "Far Side" Island: As shown in the picture, the islands in the game are very small, with a cannon and a few palm trees on them.
- Giant Mook: Carpet Bombers in Invasion Mode have a ton of hit points and continuously drop bombs. Thankfully, they're pretty slow and a rather big target too.
- The Goomba: Hot Air Balloons in Invasion Mode take one hit to die and lazily float around, although it IS possible for them to destroy your palm trees should they collide.
- Holiday Mode: There's a Christmas Mode edition of the game which contains snow, and replaces players and enemies with more festive-looking ones. Your palm trees are also replaced with Christmas trees.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The "Defensive Protection" powerup obtained from the Blue Balloon makes your Palm Trees invulnerable for the wave you pick it up in. This is only a very minor relief, however, since there are 50 waves in all.
- Kaizo Trap: The final boss in Invasion Mode. When it goes down, it's NOT over yet, as a whole swarm of large torpedos will fly out of the water in a last ditch effort at destroying your palm trees.
- Lightning Gun: One of the powerups in Invasion Mode is this, it deals a good amount of continuous damage to mooks it hits.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Invasion Mode's enemies include ICBMs, homing bombs, torpedos, and bombs dropped/launched by enemies. And sometimes all at once. You can also use one yourself if you get the missile powerup.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Your cannon cannot be hit or destroyed by any means. Your plane and palm trees, however, are not invulnerable.
-
Nintendo Hard: Don't be fooled by Invasion Mode's initial easy start, as it will get way harder once the levels start to contain huge amounts of Zerg Rush enemies. Your cannon's slow turning speed is also quite a huge limiting factor as well that will cost you Palm Trees. - No Fair Cheating: Two variations: Mutations (modifiers that make the game easier) will cut your ratings score in half if they're active, and actual in-game cheats will invalidate your score.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: In Invasion Mode's hardest difficulty, you only have one palm tree. If that goes down it's Game Over.
- Palmtree Panic: The game pretty much takes place on tropical islands with palm trees as your Video-Game Lives.
- Power Up Letdown: The Autocannon in Invasion Mode. It fires fast, but not as fast as the Bubble Gun, and it deals half the damage of the regular attack.
- Protection Mission: The objective in Invasion mode is to protect your palm trees from getting destroyed by the enemies.
- Quad Damage: Red balloons double your attack power for the duration of the wave.
- Recurring Boss: The boss in Invasion Mode are basically the same giant blimp, except with more health and different attacks. The last two bosses are basically the first and third bosses, except with extra torpedo flunkies to harass you.
- Silly Reason for War: Two islands (or one island and an invasion force in Invasion Mode) are fighting to protect their own palm trees and/or blow up the other's.
- Timed Power-Up: Sort of. The Balloon Power-Ups last for a single level only.
- Video-Game Lives: Palm Trees. You lose them should you fail to stop an enemy or enemy projectile from colliding with them. In 2's Invasion mode, the game is over once you lose all of them.
- Zerg Rush: Mid-to-late levels of Invasion Mode send massive waves of bomber planes and/or missile weaponry towards your Palm Trees. Better hope you can take all of them down!
Cease Fire!
