When writing about Platoon I highlighted how games magazines of the time almost all condemned the crass, too soon, nature of its use of the Vietnam War. For Desert Strike, Electronic Arts look at that unseemly rapidity and say ‘hold my beer’. The game is not exactly subtle in being subtitled Return to the Gulf, and is clearly inspired by the almost contemporary Gulf War, to the point of being named in line with the Americans’ codenames for its phases (Desert Shield, Desert Storm).
The real-life inspiration extends to the hardware you are given charge of – Apache helicopter, Hellfire missiles and all. Not everything is as true-to-life, though. You face the fictionalised threat of a General Kilbaba, a mad crazy loony in the Middle East trying to destroy the world, and by the way did we mention he is mad? The game wants to make sure you get this point by both extensively telling and showing, via cutscenes with lieutenant Muammar.
You set out to stop Baba Is Kill as the pilot of a helicopter, hovering above the ground in isometric 3D. It’s a close relative of the lone solider taking on an army of Commando and Green Beret and the like, and an improvement. Taking on everyone with one helicopter still makes no sense, but it’s not as thoroughly detached from reality. Being able to take some hits before going down is within the realms of plausibility and means enemies don’t have to be ridiculously weak and/or bad at aiming. High firepower and low maneuverability is a combination that makes for reasonable strategic combat as you try to keep at a safe distance while retaining line of sight. There are satisfying complications of side missions to pick up supplies or soldiers on your side, which among other things can secure you additional choices of co-pilot.
The co-pilot selection (which includes a woman; progress of a sort continues) is full of people called Mad Gaz, Wildthang and similar and indicates a nonchalance bordering on relish which is typical of the attitude the game takes to war. Desert Strike presents a simple experience in which the world and the USA (same difference) are under threat from one-dimensional evil foreigners and you are the obvious force for good. You have the right, nay the duty, go and shoot lots of stuff and kill lots of people, other people, to fix it. Making a game where this is the story is not something which happens in isolation, obviously – its crude shorthand can only be so effective because of all of the films and books and the news which have set it up already, but it’s still a considered move to go so far in that direction.
Layering that attitude with the closeness to reality of the setting, and the American flags fluttering in isometric miniature near your take-off points, means Desert Strike is more obviously jingoistic and racist than Platoon or any other war game to date. Yet the reviews hardly went big on this. Perhaps it was because I was focused on the Amiga ones, which weren’t the original release, but there is a lot of noting that there had been some kind of controversy to do with the Gulf War and then quickly moving on to graphics and handling and the things which really matter. No politics here, guv. A battle for the frank coverage of games lost before it even really begun.
Gallup Amiga charts, Amiga Force Issue 7, July 1993
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