Desert Strike Advance

Odd how 10-year-old Gulf War-inspired games suddenly seem topical again, isn't it? Desert Strike gets a GBA remake.

Time has been less than kind to Desert Strike, originally released on the SNES and Genesis 10 years ago. One of the first mission-based action titles, you pilot an Apache helicopter across four desert landscapes, rescuing hapless MIAs and blowing up chemical plants and other installations. Your opponent, the whimsically generic General Mubaba, has an army of tanks and missile launchers waiting to blow you into tiny bits.

Whoever this Mubaba guy is, he definitely has his act together. This game is just plain hard, in the frustrating way many 16-bit games were, so expect to play missions again and again before you manage to survive intact. The smaller GBA screen means you can't see as much of your surroundings as you could in the originals, making it easy to sustain damage from something you can't even see. The graphics are straight out of the SNES version and look sufficiently desert-y enough; the sound is also straight out of the SNES version and is just as tinny and out of tune. While not at all unplayable, Desert Strike was probably better off left untouched in the memories of nostalgic gamers.

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