Platoon

#gm0110 - Developed by Ocean and published by Sunsoft Corporation, Platoon was released in December of 1988. Inspired by the movie of the same name, you take control of 5 soldiers, in turn, and must navigate your way through the three stages of the game. The first stage is jungle warfare, where you need to kill the enemy in your way and avoid hazards in order to blow up a bridge and locate a village with map and trap door. Of the course the enemy is intent on keeping you from this and have booby-trapped the area. They may also launch air strikes. This stage is a side scroller, but the next stage is first-person 3-D. In this stage you must make your way through a network of tunnels to find a compass and flares. You can switch between the five soldiers as they each take one of the 3 hits that would kill them. The next stage is when you face the infamous Sergeant Barnes. You must hit him with everything you've got or you will not survive. Finally you get to fight King Charlie himself! The graphics in Platoon are good, featuring well-defined characters and rich, dense jungle environments, and the sound is not bad either. But the gameplay leaves a little to be desired. And this war game for NES is extremely difficult, but once you get the hang of it, it's not bad. (Rarity Rating D)