Nuclear Strike 64

The threat of nuclear war is upon us again. Join up with the Strike Team as they try to avert this crisis by taking on a variety of tactical missions and keep the world at peace. Nuclear Strike 64 puts you behind the controls of an Apache Helicopter, as well as several other vehicles, decked out with lots of weapons in a series of challenging missions in an attempt to keep the world radiation free.

Gameplay

This is the next in the series of 'Strike' games. Those of you that have played Desert Strike or Jungle Strike already know what this game is all about: You pilot a helicopter and other vehicles on various missions that involve rescue/capture, search and destroy, escorting, and transporting cargo -- amongst other things.

The game's perspective is a 3/4 above view. The levels take place in various locations over both sea and land, and there are a variety of enemies including tanks, anti-aircraft cannons, missile towers, infantry, ships, submarines, etc. You name it, it is probably there to attack you. Fortunately, you have a decent arsenal of weapons including machine guns, rockets, missiles, and wingtip missiles. On some levels, you also have use of vehicles other than your Apache Helicopter that may or may not make the battle easier depending on how you use them. These include an A-10 Warthog, MI HX Abrams Tank, PACV Hovercraft, and an AV8 Harrier Jet amongst others.

While primarily an action game, this game requires a good amount of strategy to succeed since your ammo, fuel, and armor are all in limited quantities. There are usually places on the map where you can 'refill' these, but they are typically limited and often times surrounded by enemy troops which means you need to plan your missions out so you can survive. The map screen not only shows the map, but also the locations of detected enemy troops, assets (fuel, ammo, vehicles, etc.), and mission objectives. Everything is color-coded which helps quite a bit when looking at the radar on the main screen since some items blend in with the background and can be hard to see. There is a Heads-Up Display (HUD) that shows all the vital statistics including ammo, armor, fuel, radar, and a compass amongst other things. While the option is there to disable the HUD, it's not something you'll probably want to do as it's incredibly useful.

The controls in the game aren't really that complicated and you should become comfortable with them in only a matter of minutes. Even though you can use the analog stick, control of all the vehicles is digital only. If you've played the previous games, you already know the controls and how they respond. The response is quite nice, which is very helpful when missiles come flying at you. Targeting is automatic and once something is targeted, all ordnance fired will hit its mark. Although the targeting is automatic, the reticle can be manually changed to target the enemy of your choice assuming it is within range.

It is pretty easy to get the hang of the general interface. The map screen in the game is probably the most complicated part of the interface as you can select objectives, enemies, or assets and cycle through available options that then show the selected item on the map.

The difficulty in the game is higher than I would expect for the medium setting. Once I remembered that I had missiles and wingtip missiles available, the game became much easier, but still a little more challenging than I'd expect for a "medium" level of difficulty. There are three levels of difficulty available: hard, medium, and easy.

Graphics

This game supports the add-on memory expansion pack, which can make the graphics even better than the base level graphics. That's saying quite a bit, as the base level graphics are very impressive. The colors appear to be a bit brighter than average and the photo-realistic textures are really nice. The special effects, such as explosions, are not so extravagant that they interfere with other aspects of gameplay. Unfortunately, I don't have a memory expansion so I can't comment on how much better the graphics are with the memory expansion.

Audio

There are a lot of sound effects in this game. Virtually every sound imaginable on a battlefield can be heard in this game from screaming people to explosions to helicopter blades to ammo shooting, et cetera, so on and so forth. All of the sounds are done well but there's nothing groundbreaking or incredible here.

Bottom Line

If you are familiar with and liked the previous 'Strike' games, you'll love this one just as much. While this is a great action game, don't assume it's mindless -- you have to think and react quickly to situations. The game is very challenging, but not impossible and gives a feeling of accomplishment when you finally finish a mission. Be advised, though, It can also be a bit frustrating at times due to this challenge. Overall it is still a fun game. If you are looking for a challenging action/strategy game, Nuclear Strike 64 may be right up your alley which is why I give it a score of 85.

Took long enough, didn't it? The Strike series of games (beginning with Desert Strike on the Mega Drive) have been around since the Gulf War days of the early Nineties – which now we're in a whole new century sounds even longer ago – but only now has it arrived on the N64. Nuclear Strike 64 is a (sort of) conversion of the 1997 PlayStation title; it's not a straight port because changes to the mission structure have had to be made to handle the switch from CD to cartridge. Where the PlayStation game had five large maps, on the N64 the levels are broken up into smaller chunks. This is actually an improvement in some ways, the smaller maps helping to reduce repetition and cut down on the amount of flying back and forth you have to do.

Strike Three!

With a name like Nuclear Strike, you'd expect the threat of atomic armageddon to be looming large, and you'd be right. The villain of the piece is a former CIA agent, Colonel LeMonde, who is the leader of a terrorist army causing chaos in south-east Asia. Through his contacts in the black markets of the underworld, LeMonde has obtained a nuclear warhead, and plans to destroy the world. The evil maniac obviously hasn't considered the ramifications of this plan very well, as it would cause him no small inconvenience himself, but insane megalomaniacs tend not to worry about this sort of thing.

Enter the Strike Team, a multinational force dedicated to flying around the world blowing up bad guys and making the place safe for truth, justice and the Coca-Cola way. Most of the game sees you at the stick and collective of an Apache helicopter gunship, but there are several other pieces of nifty combat hardware for you to use, ranging from Harrier jets to hovercraft.

Nuclear Strike is played from an isometric viewpoint, looking down on your chariot of destruction from behind. The landscape rotates around you as you manoeuvre. This is the same viewpoint as on the PlayStation, but N64 owners get to play it without any texture warping or polygon pop. Some people might whinge that the ground is a bit blurry, but in actual play this isn't noticeable – in fact, it makes things look that little bit more realistic.

Raining Fire Down On Charlie

The structure of the game is simple – as you complete each mission objective in a particular area, the next one is revealed, giving you a new location to reach or targets to destroy. Large sections of each map are overrun by enemy forces, however, so you're almost certain to come under fire along the way. The control system gives you quite a lot of freedom of movement; the trigger and shoulder buttons are used to jink sideways, so proficient pilots can fly in circles around their target, keeping their weapons locked on while (hopefully) minimising the amount of damage they take. It's actually quite a decent system, the only annoyance being that it's not always as smooth as you'd like.

The mission system and range of different vehicles helps keep things varied – you never know just what your next challenge will entail. One minute you might be blasting gunboats, the next protecting a train full of dignitaries, then dropping mines into the paths of battleships.

Nuke 'Em High

Something that's quite surprising about Nuclear Strike is just how difficult it is. The individual missions aren't all that challenging, but completing a series of them one after the other rapidly becomes worryingly difficult. Things are made even harder once certain mission objectives become one-shot affairs – if you mess up, you have to start the entire level again. Even if you manage to complete the earlier mission objectives successfully, you can still find that you don't have enough ammo to take out the final targets. Managing your resources is vital, but even the most bullet-conscious pilots can find themselves lacking lead in their pencil at a crucial moment. It's slightly annoying that when you die, your resurrected vehicle doesn't automatically replenish its fuel and ammo stocks, but carries on with the same amount it did just before its predecessor met an untimely end. This means that it's all too easy to continue playing with almost no ammo remaining, or in a worst-case scenario to have only a few drops of fuel left in your tank.

Nuclear Strike is definitely very playable, and on higher difficulty levels is challenging enough to keep even hotshot pilots busy. The only down point is that it is quite an old game – cutting edge it ain't. On the other hand, Resident Evil 2 (reviewed last issue) was hardly the new kid on the block either and we gave that high marks, so playability wins out in the end. Which is how it should be, really!

When we at 64 Magazine were young (some of us still are! – Roy) there were quite a few cutting-edge action combat games in the 'Strike' series. Desert Strike and Jungle Strike were both top sellers in the nineties and now THQ have added a new version of the EA classic for the N64. Nuclear Strike 64 is very similar to the original games and has captured the classic gameplay while making a few modern additions to it.

Taking a top down view of the world, the game gives you control of a chopper (and later on a range of other attack vehicles) with which to complete your mission objectives. Apparently, an ex-CIA agent, Colonel LeMonde, has stolen a nuclear weapon and only the Strike team is capable of destroying the evil tyrant's army and returning the world to a state of peace. Each mission must be completed before details of your next sortie are announced and the objectives become steadily more complicated as you progress through the game.

Strriiiiike!

The map screen is used to display the location of your missions as well as providing a handy guide to where all the supplies and your Home Base are situated. By selecting an item to show on the map your on-screen compass directs you to the closest item, whether it's your mission objective or finding some extra fuel to keep your engines running. You need to use this screen a great deal and taking a good look at the enemy forces before starting your flight certainly helps you to avoid hot spots.

Your attack helicopter is fitted with some weak machine guns as its primary offensive device plus it has a few more powerful weapons for larger, more dangerous targets. The rockets are great for demolishing enemy buildings and the missiles can take out most enemy tanks with just one hit. Unfortunately, there are far more enemy units than you have ammunition for – so pick your targets carefully and concentrate on the mission at hand. If you do take the time to destroy all the buildings in the surrounding area, you often uncover a nice surprise but it's far better to leave them be and focus on your specific objectives.

Badda Boom!

The overall control in the game is very good and you don't need to worry too much about flying your chopper as it automatically hovers over the ground and can't crash – until it's taken too much damage and spirals to the ground in flames that is. You control the weaponry and must try to avoid taking too much damage or running out of fuel. If your craft gets shot down, you get another chance but the ammo and fuel is not restored and if you were low on gas then your situation could still be critical. Carefully saving your decent weapons for harder enemies and watching your supplies makes this a very challenging game that will keep you going for quite some time.

Map's the way to do it!

Older gamers who remember the classic Strike series will recognise all the trademark features we became familiar with, though THQ have added a few innovations too. There are fifteen different vehicles to control throughout this game including different choppers, a Hovercraft and a Harrier Jump Jet, all of which have similar controls but different weapons and storage capacities. The game obviously looks a whole lot better and has full 3-D battlefields packed with enemy soldiers, vehicles and buildings. The game is fast throughout, no matter how many enemies there are on-screen attacking you, but that's about it. This game is a souped-up Strike classic, but it doesn't even start to push the N64's processing power.

Nuclear Strike 64 is not a bad game at all. It's fun, challenging and brings back a whole load of memories, but it is definitely looking a little outdated. THQ have certainly made an effort to make the N64 version of Nuclear Strike the definitive one (it's much better than the PlayStation version) and have indeed succeeded in producing a quality game that runs incredibly smoothly. Unfortunately, having played the original titles what seems like a decade ago, the game does not seem to be that much better than the 16 bit Genesis games. Surely in over ten years a few more improvements could have been made than just a few extra craft to control?

Thanks to THQ and Pacific Power & Light Company (that is a name of a game developer by the way), N64 owners will finally be able to play one of the Strike games without having to buy another system first. In this winter 1999 release, players control a variety of military vehicles and complete complex mission objectives in order to stop a nuclear terrorist who desperately wants to start WWIII.

Next from the industrious T HQ comes Nuclear Strike, a timely N64 rendition of the third game in the top grade Strike series, after the Saddam-bashing Desert and the drug-smashing Jungle. And, although Nuclear is seen by Strike afficionados as being the weakest of the three, snappily-named developers Pacific Power & Light - who repair telephone lines in their spare time - reckon they've turned in the best version of Strike yet.

Probably part of the reason is that they've created the entire game from scratch, bravely deciding not to simply port over the age-old PlayStation and PC versions, and instead give N64 gamers something to shout about. The result is a surprisingly fine-looking chopper sim with 15 different air, ground and water vehicles - including Apache 'copters, Harrier jump jets, tanks and hovercrafts - as well as some much-improved Al, with CPU opponents reacting and attacking depending on what you do. The effect is mightily impressive.

Disappoint in ugly there's no four-way deathmatching, even though the Strike series would be perfect for a spot of multiplayer rocket-launching. But there should be more than enough one-player missions to keep you going (over 20 according to T HQ), and the extensive gameplay enhancements - better Al, quicker speeds, bigger explosions - means there's also a good deal more to occupy your time. In fact, this could just be one of the best Strike games yet.

Look out for more as we get it...

With enough military vehicles to challenge even the G8 superpowers, the Strike series is finally landing on the N64. While controlling Apache helicopters and hovercrafts, you'll try to stop a crazed terrorist bent on starting a nuclear war. Pitted against a "smart" A.I. that reacts to player behavior and commands, you'll carry the fight from the jungles of Asia to tropical islands in the South Seas. If Nuclear Strike is anything like its PlayStation predecessors, you can expect intense action and a lot of explosions this winter.