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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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   (WHO WANTS HELICOPTERS!?!?!)
CLASSIC GAMING
Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike
Developer: Gremlin Interactive
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Year: 1991/1993/1994
Genre: Shoot-em up
System: SNES/Genesis Mega Drive/PC/PSP
Most people, one way or another, know about war and its systematic work for (and against) humanity. Some people, including children, dream of being a war hero by the sheer bravado and action it offers. The power of wielding a weapon or being part of a master strategy that may involve either blasting the hell out of an enemy camp, or rescuing POWs. For those too young or too afraid or have a belief that makes them refuse to actively join the army, there is always the joy of videogames with simulated violence and revivable allies. There are such games as Command & Conquer for that, but there is also an unsung series that gave a great feel of war. The Strike series.
Story - The Strike series began in 1991 on the various consoles such as the Mega Drive (or Genesis) and the SNES.
Desert Strike dealt with the aftermath of the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein was unfazed by the war and still in dictatorial power, whereby you are sent to terminate someone very like Saddam Hussein as a mere helicopter pilot able to sneak in mostly undetected and wreak chaos as well as rescue hostages.
Jungle Strike involved chasing down Carlos Ortega, a Colombian drug lord who made deals with Hussein-a-like from the previous game for arms to plan attacks on the USA including on the US President, as well as continuing South American chemical stations.
Urban Strike stars H.R Malone, an insane media mogul terrorising power over the USA by a range of terrorist attacks including oil spills off the coast of California, turning Las Vegas into his own personal fortress, an attack on the World Trade Center in New York (and this game was set in 2001, so holy shit accidental premonition), and even using Mexico's border as a terrorist training camp.
 (FUCK PLANES, HELICOPTER'S GONNA RAPE THAT PLANE!)
Gameplay - The games offered a somewhat realistic control over your main vehicle, the Apache helicopter, which required it to be turned left and right to move around, offering a full 360-degree directional control for you to fly. The helicopter has a limited fuel supply (which you had to sparingly refuel by the fuel canisters throughout the level), a limited ammo supply (restored by ammo crates), and armour repair (in even rarer supply in either armour crates or restored slowly by the dropping off of passengers at landing zones).
Missions in the games range from blowing the living hell out of a whole enemy base, to carefully picking off enemies in a POW camp and then rescuing the prisoners to be taken to a landing zone.
The helicopter also has a limited space allowance for passengers. The normal limit is 6 but there are times when you can be able to swap to other vehicles for mission requirements. Strategy plays a part in this on when to pick up fuel, ammo, armour, passengers and remembering them all. Unless you knew the right cheats.
 (CARS!?!? YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME, HELICOPTER GONNA SQUASH YER BEETLES PUSSIES!)
The games, while various in their mission objectives all boil down to flying around a certain region and blowing up shit like crazy. Not an entirely bad thing overall when facing against megalomaniacal men rising to the level of warlords. Due to the limited capacity of all the essentials you have to take care with, the games become frustratingly difficult, brutal even, to the point where entering one area too early before completing one objective beforehand becomes a death penalty.
The only real difference in terms of gameplay you get is when in certain parts of Urban Strike you can get off the chopper and navigate various buildings to deal with the enemies within. You can also choose from a range of pilots who all have marginally different abilities and are merely aesthetic choices.
 (ONLY JACK BAUER WITH A HELICOPTER CAN CANCEL THIS BITCH PERMANENTLY!)
Graphics - For their time the graphics are pretty good, the almost 3D aspect given to your chopper add a great sense of an open area to get blasted in, with little people running around and the colours between enemies and allies are usually very easy to tell so you don't accidentally fail any missions (because if you fail ANY mission, it's ALL over, you fucked up son, go home, back to the beginning of the mission, hope you have your passwords too). The deserts looked scorched and sandblasted, the jungles insufferably green and sometimes confusing to see, the cities mixed skyscrapers threatening to be crashed into.
However the PC versions of the games had some very cool FMV versions of the cutscenes complete with the kind of acting from any Steven Seagal movie villain. The games essentially feel like such, except far more fun.
 ( TANKS MAY BE A WORTHY CHALLENGE...IF YOU AREN'T A MOTHERFUCKIN' HELICOPTER!)
Music/Sound - Not a lot can be told about the music, since most of it passes by you as background jingles among the realistic-sounding helicopter whirls and explosions all around, it's like trying to talk about the music of a Rambo movie, if there was no music. Was there even music in a Rambo movie, there had to be surely, but you can't remember can you? See, it's the same thing.
In all honesty I can't say anything good about the music other than the BADASS themes, especially my favourite of them all, the SNES version of Jungle Strike's theme. Jesus christ I love that song, but that's just me. The best one in terms of technical value has to be Urban Strike on the Genesis, a real furious rock song blasting out amongst the chopper blades.
While this is a game that cannot compare to Command & Conquer, it is nevertheless a small gem of a series that has managed to become popular enough to successfully leap from its 2D roots into 3D with little notice into Soviet and Nuclear Strike other than some fans criticising the different story angle but that's not for this review.
The future of the Strike series went not with a bang but with a whimper when the developers at Gremlin Interactive disappeared, while Electronic Arts had already begun to pave their way onto the podiums of megaconglomerates to become merely EA Games.
 (This is only to prove I wasn't lying.
Also HELICOPTERS ARE SO AWESOME THEY TRAUMATISED ME AND I CAN NEVER GO NEAR ONE EVER AGAIN!)
A series that would have deserved more attention for its fun little attempts at realistic war strategy, but instead became merely an unsung soldier left to rot in the trenches of other similar games.
They may have stopped the wars before they happened, but they couldn't keep up with the rest of the charging army it was with. And so, we can only say this. Dos vidanya, Team Strike.
But at least the first two games are in the EA Replay PSP compilation, so hey, at least a few remember the glorious old days.
Fun and Innovation - 3
Replayability - 4
Gameplay - 3
Presentation - 4"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: Pooter Scooter
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 In an hour of Darkness a blind man is the best guide. In an age of Insanity look to the madman to lead the way. 
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Rank: Fuckstick
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Oh my god. My favorite game on the Genesis besides Sonic 2 was Jungle Strike. You're a hero. Win Cookies Awarded: 7 (bawwwwww)
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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Ciao Time wrote:Oh my god.
My favorite game on the Genesis besides Sonic 2 was Jungle Strike.
You're a hero. Jungle Strike on the SNES has my all-time favourite videogame theme ever. And I even talked with the composer who worked on it. <3 "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: Fuckstick
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I completely forgot about this game. One of my favorites.
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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Fuck yeah, man. Strangely, I never played these games. But your uncanny ability to phrase the pros and cons in a language very near to my heart, your fucking epic captions, and the way you described the music have turned me on (to the games.) ++ silverwasp wrote:Be careful what you wish for... I have 10 younger siblings and I am only 20....
Yes.... Same parents WarMachine wrote:meh...maybe if he hadn't been handed a burning house he could have done great things, but right now he has won the Prize for what? Damage Control?
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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HolyJaw wrote:Fuck yeah, man. Strangely, I never played these games. But your uncanny ability to phrase the pros and cons in a language very near to my heart, your fucking epic captions, and the way you described the music have turned me on (to the games.)
++ And here I thought this was gonna be one of my worst reviews with not as much to say as the other ones. Thanks! "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Wait...could you get out of your helicopter and go around shooting people with your wimpy pilot? You could get in other vehicles too, right? I mean, if you wanted to. Your whirlybird kicked butt, but that was an option, yes? If thats true, then I totally remember and loved this game. If not, then I had no idea what you were talking about. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan My Backpack
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Rank: Fuckstick
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Muffalopadus wrote:Wait...could you get out of your helicopter and go around shooting people with your wimpy pilot? You could get in other vehicles too, right? I mean, if you wanted to. Your whirlybird kicked butt, but that was an option, yes?
If thats true, then I totally remember and loved this game. If not, then I had no idea what you were talking about. Jungle Strike let you switch between vehicles at certain points in the game, but you couldn't Grand Theft Auto around with your pilot on foot. Win Cookies Awarded: 7 (bawwwwww)
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