Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1992)

I had a lot of fun renting this game back in the 90s though I am not sure whether or not I managed to beat it. This game (the entire trilogy really) has stuck with me over the years as among the best and most memorable of SNES games and thus was one of the 1st games I emulated in the decade. This time I was sure to beat the game.

The game is just a fun as I remember. I like the way the helicopter controls and the strategic and tactical aspects of the game, by way of checking the map to see what enemies are where and planning how best to tackle them. My preferred strategy was to try and approach enemies from behind and drop a barrage of hydras to destroy them before they could even get a shot off. I would save the more powerful hellfires for when out of hydras and try to only use the gun for buildings and the weakest enemies. Destroying the environment is fun but I am not a big fan of having to scavenge fuel and ammo. I would like that better if you could carry more than 100% load and/or pick up and move around supplies for more convenient resupply. Still I respect the strategic and more realistic aspect of limited resources. I wish it had more replayability, since the levels do not change and there is an optimal path through each. A randomized arcade mode or editor for making levels would be awesome.

Update 2022

Played through again using a walkthrough and learned some things that I never knew before: 1; that the control schemes lead to vastly different gameplay, 2; that copilot choice was tantamount to difficulty level, and 3; that there was a strafe button. For my previous playthroughs I always went with the default selections, which was hard mode. X man was the coolest copilot (for obvious reason) but also the worst shot, so I had to get dangerously close to hit enemies. And since I did not know how to strafe, that lead to me circling around to kill with rocket barrages and missiles from behind. The gun was mostly used for weak enemies and buildings, though the reverse tricks from Urban could still be used to defeat enemies with only the gun. This time I went with Keith, the copilot with the best shooting, and he could out range any enemy. It was easy mode, and really sucked some of the fun out when the enemies completely did not react to being shot. It was silly that any enemy could have a shorter range, but I accept it as an optional thing.

I always played with the traditional momentum controls and prefer them because it felt more like how a real helicopter would control. The strafing was awkward because the direction controls were relative to the chopper rather than the screen, so it only worked sensibly from the south and ok from north. It could be also used for minor adjustments. With the From Above controls the strafing allowed me to move the chopper in any direction at full speed, like a less realistic arcade shoot em up. It was easy to fly side to side to avoid enemy shots, though I struggled to perform the kind of circling and reversing over the enemy that I mastered with the momentum controls. I only did the first level with those controls (and the worst copilot) to see how it played, and it was fun. The different options changed the gameplay so much that they added a surprising amount of replayability.

This is still one of my favorite games, and one of the best on the SNES. Excellent gameplay, setting, and art. There is just something about how the game feels like playing with army toys, combined with the strategic aspects of managing resources, flight paths, and target order, the action combat, and the sheer unadulterated blowing shit up. Too bad the game was so short. I would have liked more pitched battles against multiple opponents at once, bigger fuel tank with fewer fuel pickups for less overall refueling, and sped up passenger disembarkation. It did annoy me how long it took to kill some buildings using the gun, but that was on me for being stingy with the better ammo. The chopper's armor was only 60% the number in Urban Strike, so getting hit was devastating. I did not like how armor repairs did not show on the map, how many enemy types were not always on the map, and how multiple things could not be displayed at once. For example, it would have been nice to turn on ammo, fuel, MIAs and landing sites all together, or all the AA enemy types together. The game was also sorely lacking non AA vehicles to destroy, like tanks.

9.0/10

Preface:

Another Genesis I've heard come up from time to time but never actually played myself. Actually I haven't played many helicopter games in my life, Choplifter possibly being the only one. Regardless, the game does look like it could be fun in an arcadey sort of way.

Gameplay, Story and Value:

Desert Strike has you piloting your helicopter around a sandy beachfront, where you must take out various structures and save allies, all while keeping your chopper repaired, gassed up and stocked on ammunition. You're given you list of objectives, as well as a map of where to find them, which removed any unnecessary headaches from actually playing the game. In addition, your map will also show you where any fuel and ammo containers are, as well as missing agents you can return to an extraction point to regain any lost armor.

The chopper itself controls as you'd expect, and flying around the coast is pretty fun. Each of your three different weapons is mapped to a different face button, and each has their uses. Machine guns are good at handling soldiers and base camps, Hydra's deal with light turrets and medium ground threats like trucks or grounded planes, and Hellfires will tear apart structures. Finding an ammo crate will restore ALL your weapons to full capacity, so some thought should be put into when you should actually pick them up.

Aiming is a little odd, as there seems to be some basic lock-on mechanics but you still need to put yourself at just the right distance from the target for it to work, if it works at all. Once all the objectives are complete, you'll move on to the next campaign, of which there are four total.

Presentation, Music and Sound:

There's not a ton to look at in Desert Strike. Sprites and landscapes are bland and boring, animations are okay, and sometimes you'll have a hard time discerning the allies you need to rescue from the backgrounds they're emerging from. Aside from that last one, there's nothing particularly detracting either. Everything works fine for the most part, and it's pretty easy to tell what's going on.

The sound helps with your awareness, as each event has it's own easily identifiable sound effects. You'll hear a sound if you're actually hitting your target, or if a foot troop is shooting at you, or if you just blew up your own ammo crate. If it weren't for these sound effect it would actually be a lot harder to tell exactly what was going on at any point in the game. That side, while functional, they're not particularly exciting.

Aside from the title screen and opening sequence, music is completely absent from Desert Strike.

Afterthoughts:

I'd be hard pressed to call Desert Strike a "bad" game. It's a fun little arcade distraction with enough difficulty to keep me trying. That said, it's certainly not among my favorite games on the console, but the experience it provides is unique enough that I could see myself picking it up again at some point.

Review:

Gameplay: