Review: Desert Strike: Return To The Gulf

Platform:  Practically everything: Sega Mega Drive, Amiga, GB, GBC, GBA, PSP,  PC, SNES etcetcetc

Features: 1 player,  Password Save Release Date: February 1993

Dateline 1993:  An unnamed country much like those found in the Middle East, and an evil dictator known as "Kilbaba" bent on mass destruction and oil proliferation.  You could be forgiven for drawing parallels to our own Gulf war, which ended a year before the release of this title. Much like Konami's next-gen but announced-but-canceled title "6 Days in Fallujah", the release of this was paved in controversy with many cries of  "too soon!" and claims of cashing in on the recently ended war. What finally came out was one of the most amazing action games of the first half of the 90's, known simply as "Desert Strike". 

The game starts up with a relatively static briefing on your mission,  given to you by your commander. As soon as the briefing finishes you're thrust into your chopper on an aircraft carrier for take-off and are able to deal to Kilbaba's forces as you wish.  With a map as huge as any of the ones in this game,  it's going to be easy to get lost. If you hit start you can hit "Start"  you can bring up a map screen.  From here you can see objectives, find the nearest ammunition and fuel dumps and types of enemy by hitting A,B or C respectively (based on Sega Megadrive play- may differ for other systems).

My only major technical gripe about this game is the lack of an on screen mini-map, which was present in later "Strike" titles like Soviet Strike and Nuclear Strike (PSX/N64+PSX respectively).

As far as I am aware this is one of the first games to pioneer open world gaming which really hit off when DMA Design (now Rockstar)'s "Grand Theft Auto" series. From the start screen mentioned earlier you can assess your objectives such as "Destroy target (x) " or "Rescue (number) marines from gunfire" in any order you wish, with a few changes on the fly to given descriptions to keep you on your toes.

You can expect each map to clock in around and hour+ of play or so, with 4 maps, each containing upwards of 6 mission objectives to complete.  Saving progress is done via a password screen (meaning you'll fumbling for a pen every now and then to write it down in the back of your manual).

This game is a must buy for any retro gamer with a keen eye for action games and is hideously easy to find (especially for Sega Megadrive), and if you cant find an original cart it is also available on the "EA Replay" collection for PSP alongside a few other awesome titles such as it's sequel "Jungle Strike", the "Road Rash" series, Ultima,  Budokan and B.o.B.  If you really wanna go out of your way, try and track down the version release for the original Gameboy or Gamegear (Monochrome and colour repectively).