We being on a rather cinematic note, especially for the days before the SNES.



Seta...why do I see their name on every weird but awesome older game?




This game says it takes place in the "Far East"...it's Vietnam. No sense beating around the bush about it. It was a bad war for everyone, but the U.S. seemed to get screwed over the worst. Besides South Vietnam, of course.

Here's our hero, heroically crashing his plane into the jungle.





And that's the end of our weekend. Fuck.



Our Hero, checking on his friend (Player 2, if you've got two controllers, or anyone crazy to try and buy their way through this thing with you).




Hey, he's alright! OH SHIT VIET CONG



And so, you begin your wonderful life as a P.O.W.



And with that, we get a title screen:




And no, Chuck Norris is not coming to save you. Just these 3 guys.





OK, let's get this guy outta here and be home in time for Corn Flakes-OH SHIT VIET CONG







Beginning to get the theme of this game yet?


Our hero is understandably pissed about his ride getting blown up, and he's not about to blow his one shot at freedom.

Of course, you know what that means.



BERSERKER! (Love like a truck sold seperately.)

And with that, again, very cool introduction, especially for a game made in 1989 for the arcades, we begin.

This game uses a setup similar to Ikari Warriors, I.E., you have full 360 aiming with the help a of dial that's attached to the joystick.

Unfortunately, I do not have such a dial, so I'm stuck using the shoulder buttons on my pad as a replacement.


One of the odd (And there is a lot of odd in this game, if memory serves) things about this game is the health system. Basically, you collect these bullets that nearly every enemy in the game drops when they die:



The weird part is that your health system is linked to your weapons system as well.

You start out with a standard issue machinegun and some hand grenades (40, to be exact). the more of these bullets you pick up, the better guns you get.

From the machine gun (Which I showed a little bit of in that last pic of the intro post), you get a rocket launcher.



And from there, you get the classic close quarters implement of doom: The Flamethrower.



With the main weapons out of the way, we begin our game by...hijacking a U.S. Air Force bomber that was just lying around a Vietnamese base for some reason, and flying off to freedom?




Wow. What a ripoff, I want my time I wasted from writing this thing back-OH SHIT SUPER TANK





Despite it's crazy-ass look, it's quite easy, since the bomber is more or less invincible.




HAHA! Nothing can stop me now-OH SHIT HELICOPTER





Oh. Well, surely nothing can possibly stop my escape now!





Oh.

When we last left our intrepid hero, he had somehow survived his getaway plane exploding from at least 5 stories up with him inside of it.

Gotta love old-school videogame logic, huh?

Anyways, now is as good a time as any to tell you about the amount of interaction you can do with the environment by slow roasting a bull with my flamethrower.




Mmm...Toasty. (Wow, I've somehow managaed to rip off Quizno's and Midway with two words! That's gotta be some kind of record.)

OK, OK, back to the ass kicking. And there's a lot of it to be done.

As if the 20 snipers on the cliff taking potshots at my ass weren't enough, they've already sent the damn Air Force after me:



And the Armored Division...



And OH SHIT PUNJI PIT




And here's our first look at this game's version of our old friend the continue screen.




No I don't give up, only broke people give up!

(Yes, I am fully aware that I am playing on MAME, and therefore have unlimited credits. Does it really matter?)


New enemy type...wait, what the hell?



Are these guys supposed to be Russian soldiers? Cause there's no way in hell they're from the "Far East". East Jersey, maybe.


OK, I'm apparently supposed to head into these caves now. Just taking a moment to appreciate the amazing level of carnage you can leave behind you in this game.




Yeah, there's a guy under that tank.

WOAH FUNKY SCREEN EFFECT I CAN'T GET SCREENCAPS OF

And, now I'm fighting flamethrower troops.



And another helicopter. In a cave.



Wow. Vietnam has damn good pilots. Too bad all the fancy flying in the world can't save you from Ol' Toasty.



Wow. That is a lot of rocket launchers.



What lies beyond this hole?

Will Our Hero ever get out of Vietnam?

Will I ever be able to overcome my insomnia?

And inside the cave is...

WHAT

THE

MOTHER

FUCK.



Holy shit, it seems Vietnam has been breeding an army of King Kongs to support the fight against the bourgeoisie. Good for them.

Their primary attack is throwing human skulls at you.



And yes, this fight takes place in an area that makes the botton of the Pit from MK1 look kinda tame.

Eventually, they all fall to the gun. Everything falls to the gun. It's a gun. That's what it does. It makes animals fall down.



OK, I threw a couple grenades at them, too.

After another wicked wavy effect, we're off to Stage 2!

I figure now's as good a time as any to show off one of the subweapons you can pick up: The shrapnel grenade.





On to Stage 2. Nothing really worth screencapping, you fight your way through your standard issue straw hut village, filled with average joe enemies and tanks that are slightly larger than the last stage's tanks.

After fighting through that, we get...oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding...



A combine. They've actually resorted to throwing farm equipment at me. Commie bastards.

This thing is friggin' fast, too.

After a harrowing battle, the combine explodes, and...wait, there's more? That was just a midboss? Aw hell.

More run and gunning. Fun, but nothing notable, until I reach another military base...



WOO! The Army sent another chopper! I'm saved!


Wait a sec...



I'm really saved?








Wow.


I remember this being a hell of a lot longer.

Ah well, time to make fun of the credits!



Hehe...I'd really like to read the novel this game was supposedly based on. It's gotta be the feel-good hit of the decade.




Yeah, SCREW YOU Nakanishi. Greedy bastard kept fucking up the rotation.

Also, Hewlett-Packard? What the hell could an American PC manufacuturer possibly have had to do with this game?



..."Romed in"? I'm gonna assume that's some bad Engrish right there, but I have to ask: What the hell does Roming consist of? Does it hurt?



We close with a look at the game's very cool High Score system, which lets you choose what branch of our glorious Armed Forces you wish to represent:



Like many men and a fair amount of women, I decided to follow in my father's footsteps.












-Mjcool

Sigh...this should really have had more attention.

...could you do it for me?

No clue how.

I'll read that right now.

But there's no link to the VG page on the site. Might want to get on that.


Also. do you have an email address I could send something to?