Navy Seals

STORY / GAMEPLAY
A special ops helicopter crashed and its crew, composed of elite American commandos (Navy SEALS), has been held as prisoners somewhere in Beirut, by terrorists. A group of five special forces men is now deployed to infiltrate the terrorists' headquarters, rescue the hostages and destroy their stockpile of Stinger missiles. You, as a commando, are called to infiltrate the terrorist facilities, spot and kill heavily armed men and stay stealth as much as possible. Each mission is split into 8 separated levels. Each screen is made up of several platforms, ladders, crates, lifts, explosives and the extremely vigilant enemy guards. Ok, the guards are not responding like in other platform shooter games (running and shooting around). Those guys twist their heads to check the surrounding area and they open fire, usually with a great deal of accuracy! Approach those with caution and make your move while their heads are turned. You start the game with a hand gun, but this can be replaced by a number of weapons found in specific crates (shoot to reveal) but all being of limited ammo, such as M-16 assault guns (better fire-rate), flame thrower and rocket launcher (which wipes out everything). Your SEAL can grab onto a platform and swing or pull himself up, which helps creeping up the enemy guards! Gameplay is ok, but gets very frustrating in places and losing all of your five seals easily, due to the extreme accuracy of the guards or by falling from high grounds. Add to that, the game plays in flip-screen mode which is rather annoying I think, especially when guards or deadly pits are found in the beginning of the screens. The game plays in flip-screen mode which is rather annoying I think. Navy seals is a quite interesting gameplay but due to its extreme difficulty never being a top choice of the genre! The excessive difficulty makes Navy Seals one of the hardest games you'll come across. To be honest, I never made it to the end!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game is an excellent example of how far the Amstrad CPC+ home-computers and the GX4000 console hardware can go. Navy Seals shows more than a hint of the capabilities of the enhanced CPC hardware. As a cartridge-only release, it makes use of the computer's extra features, boasting smooth scrolling and flawless animation. The graphics are awesome and superior to the 8bit Commodore 64, with beautiful backgrounds, loads of colors and smooth sprites animation. The sound features a nice intro music theme but the in-game sound effects are quite poor (gunshots etc) which is rather awkward.