SAS Combat Simulator

Copyright : Codemasters | Reviewed by : Corazon

You?ve read about them, you?ve seen them on TV, that bloke down the pub claims he was a member! The Special Air Service (SAS) the best of the best. But what is it really like? How can you possibly fullfil your fantasies of being one of them?

No problem son. Ready up your trigger finger, here?s SAS Combat Simulator!

Graphics

Much of the play screen is taken up by a static picture of a soldier and the glaring Code Masters logo, heaven forbid you forget who owns the copyright to this game! The play screen itself, although small, is often filled with bright, colourful sprites, rocks, objects and foliage. The various enemy soldier sprites look exactly the same as yourself, but can easily be differentiated by their colour schemes.

It?s probably worth pointing out here that the game flips from one style of play to another. Whilst the first part boasts some fairly decent animations, the second falls horribly short, with player and enemies animated so badly they look like they?re being zapped with cattle prods.

Sound

The title loads up to a highly un-militaristic but suitably heroic little ditty. This thankfully ceases once the game starts however (presumably to add to that authentic SAS experience!) Then it?s just the sound of guns blazing, grenades whistling through the air, bodies crashing, jeeps smashing and explosions aplenty.

Gameplay

So, is this really an SAS combat simulator? No. In short, it?s another clone of some classic games that quite frankly did the job a whole lot better (Konami?s 1986 game "Green Beret" and Elite?s "Commando" 1985 both come to mind here)

As I mentioned, the game plays in two parts. These tend to alternate at the end of a level (but not always). The first part is kind of fun. You have your soldier, and you need to progress through enemy territory to the end of the area. This is your only goal, you don?t need to blow up anything specific, you don?t even have to kill anyone if you don?t want to. The game plays from a top down perspective, which allows plenty of freedom to manover around and avoid gunfire and grenades from enemy soldiers. You too can return fire, or, with the fire button held, lob a grenade. These can take out enemy bunkers and vehicles.

You have three basic types of enemy.

The greens - These guys roam free and act autonomously. They don?t really acknowledge your presence, they bungle about firing randomly and tossing grenades here, there and everywhere, often killing eachother!

The Greys - They stand still and lob grenades like there?s no tomorrow, it takes a little more skill and planning to take them down.

The Reds - Uh oh. These guys are trouble. If one appears on screen, he?ll make a beeline straight at you with guns blazing. If you collide, you die. Take them down fast!

To aid your plight, the game is littered with powerups in the form of little Code Masters icons. Pick one up and you may be given an extra life, rapid fire, invulnerability or even a jeep, which is especially fun as it allows you to absorb bullets and run over any unfortunate soul that gets too close. It?s not grenade proof however.... Invariably you?ll pass through to the end of the level, and it?s on to the second game type.

Oh dear.

You?ve lost your gun, your enemies lose their guns. What to do!? You suddenly remember you still have your trusty penknife.

What went from a fairly enthralling and exciting game, suddenly turns to frustration. Now you?re soldier is dumped into a side scrolling area and again has to make it to the end point. In between you and the goal, and behind you, is a number of enemy soldiers, if you connect with one, you die. Pressing fire will make you thrust out your knife a tiny way, unfortunately this requires some very precision timing, if you miss by even a nanosecond, you?re toast. To make things worse, you can only attack when you?re not moving, which only adds to the frustration. Players will find the majority of their lives used up in these sections and wondering how on earth something like this passed quality control.