Seek and Destroy
| Developer: Vision | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Mindscape | Sound: |
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| Year: 1993 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Shoot’em up | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 simultaneous | Rating: |
7/10 | |
Pilot an Apache helicopter in enemy territory. The premise of the game is right there in the title… Let me help you: search and destroy. Don’t worry, the first part doesn’t require any brainpower. The second one doesn’t either, come to think of it.
Your craft is viewed from above, centred at the bottom of the screen, and when you turn… Whoaa, it turns! The entire environment pivots around the helicopter, which itself stays fixed. This dynamic representation requires a certain graphical simplicity to avoid slowing the game down. I think it works well. The controls are easy to pick up, there’s a wide range of weapons to use (from heavy machine guns to napalm, not forgetting the homing missiles), and the sound effects are convincing. On the downside, the fuel limit annoys me, as does having to land to collect certain bonuses. I believe they fixed that in the PC version released three years later (which also includes a save function and the option to drive a tank).
Note the presence of a unique two-player mode: you share the same craft, one handles the joystick while the other shoots without a second thought.
Despite its merits, Seek and Destroy still feels like a step down from its console (and Amiga!) counterpart: Desert Strike.
Be careful if you’re using an emulator: don’t map the keyboard arrows to simulate the joystick, as the down arrow is reserved for the landing command.
Finally, the homonymous game released on PlayStation 2 in 2002–2003 has absolutely nothing to do with it, obviously (a 3D tank game). Same goes for this … and this. I couldn’t resist.
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