Generally good.

GRAPHICS 3/6

Sprites were very nice to look at, due to their simplicity and effectiveness. Unfortunately the game had some nasty style clashes. I felt that both the player's ship and later enemies didn't fit together well. The first enemies were a coloured outline, that looked great. If other enemies has fit this style, the game would've looked a lot better. The other downfall in terms of graphics is the use of Game Maker-provided effects (that D&D action in Draw or something). More of your own effects would've been another big boost in this category.

SOUND 3/6

Not many sounds or music, but what was there fit in well. Although Sound got the same mark as Graphics, this isn't a category that needs focusing on, except for one thing I noticed - resting your mouse over a button on the menu released a default sound. Simply changing this to something more personal would boost the mark to a 4.

GAMEPLAY 4/6

Pretty good, if a little slow for my liking. On the whole, the gameplay is fine as it is, although it could be improved with a little touch up here and there. The main bad point is the ship's overall slowness. It turns slowly, and it accelerates/moves a little slowly too (its deceleration needn't be changed). Although these shouldn't be changed too much, a small increase would be beneficial for the game. Shooting is generally fine, no changes needed here. It'd be nice, however, to see enemies turning mid-course, as opposed to shooting off in one direction. The wrap-around is an easy technique but proves effective, and shooting is well aligned with the player ship and feels like it ought to. In all, the gameplay is above average.

STORY 3/6

Just some words. They are welcome, and prove a nice break from games that simply throw you into the game with little more than a set of controls. They also make sense, which is a good thing.

INTERFACE 4/6

Really quite nice, although the use of GM-provided effects and one sound (mentioned before) stop it being as great as it ought to. The HUD is very simple, although the healthbar is annoying while wrapping around the screen. At the moment, I believe the healthbar draw is being drawn in a separate object that steps to the location of the player ship (which is why it rushes across the screen when the player wraps around). If you instead have the healthbar drawn non-relative onto the ship (X1 = playership.x+whatever, etc.) this would immediately be better (and stop the healthbar dragging about while the ship moves). Otherwise, a good mark here.

OVERALL 4/6

A game which a lot of effort has been poured into, and it shows. Apart from a couple of hitches, Light Wars II is very pleasant to play, and worth a go or two (it's likely you'll come back). If a III is being created, and a few improvements in the areas I've mentioned are made (along with the obvious sequel enhancements), it could quite possibly get one.

-NAL