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The first time I saw this game was in a National TV program which dedicated a bit of time to computer games. It was to brief, and I only glimpsed at the graphics but left with no idea what it was all about.
Later on a friend of mine bought and A500, and the second game he presented to me was Lost Patrol - IT BLEW MY MIND OFF! I though I have to get an Amiga!
That's true - that was the game that made buy the Amiga in the first place!
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Lost Patrol is a sort of adventure/strategy/action game that actually ends up not fitting nicely in any of the categories. You play as leader of a squad who's chopper fell behind enemy lines, and your objective is simple - return them to friendly territory - Duhoc Base.
After a relatively nice intro you're greeted by the wonderful piece of music that will make the whole game transform itself. It transmits a sense of atmosphere not very common or even achieved by other games. The main screen game appears and you see a well designed map screen.
Form this you can access all of your actions, either by the main buttons or the pull down menus, as well as save / restart / configure the game options.
The first thing you'll be required to do is to check how the squad has dealt with the helicopter fall. You access the squad button and check their stamina, morale and injuries. All of them are prone to random attributes at the beginning of the game and make your life easier or harder.
From this same screen you can set your (lead/point man) and up to two scouts. Naturally scouts will be more prone to loss of morale/stamina and they can sometimes have to engage in to hand to hand combat with other scouts or sentries. The point man is more likely to step on a land mine if not in careful marching (or in dense mine area).
Returning to the main screen you can rest your men / dig-in or move them.
As the walk is going to take long and a lot of enemies are awaiting careful routes should be planed ahead.
As you move scenery images and animations (if configured to show them) are displayed.
You can walk into villages and retrieve food and ammunition - but be careful because most of them are VC's hideouts and also use to much brutality and it may backfire on you.
Ok so far I've pretty much written about the adventure/strategy sections. What about the action? Well if you're caught by a VC patrol you'll end up in a one screen OP-wolf style game (but much more simpler), or you can be caught by machine gun-fire and you'll have to lob a grenade onto the place of fire (similar to the last one, but you have to time strength to hit the right spot) or you can be caught unaware by sniper fire, so you'll respond the same way. Actually the sniper section is the one I love best!
If you've set up scouts chances are that you might end up fighting hand to hand combat with some lonesome VC. There's also the minefield part where you probe the floor with a knife and then mark the place and have to cross the whole minefield.
Success in action sequences may add ammunition and/or rations. Failure normally kills one or more of your squad members. If the the leader (you) dies then it's Game-Over.
After summarizing the game what can I say about it?!
Well for starters action freaks are not gonna like this one not a bit, because most of the action sequences are not very good. Only the grenade and sniper are good ones, and the minefield is OK. The others are bad to average.
There isn't much adventure going one either, after you've played a few hours you'll have seen and read much of the game content (at least 85%). as for strategy, after a few attempts you'll understand that's a simple affair of compromising food resources/rest with your men's stamina and morale with movement choices.
Still Lost Patrol delivers an immersing atmospheric experience for the first few hours. But after finishing the game, you might return only for the music, because then you might consider Lost Patrol as a wonderful interactive slideshow with some strategy and action elements.
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Excellent graphics. Considering it's age I would say that they aged well.
Some action sequence animations are few frames and naturally leave a bit to be desired.
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Marvellous music. Decent to good sound effects - but very few...
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Some action sequences have only above average playability, others have a good one. But the fact remains that having a constant flick between the Strategy part / Action part is a bit unfriendly and spoils game play.
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It might seem that I didn't like the game - but I did. It's a very well designed and atmospheric affair.
This is a game that everyone should test at least once in their life!
The only problem is it's limited game play. It's neither a strategy nor adventure nor action game.... |
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Get Amiga Forever with pre-installed Workbench, games, applications, and much more.
It also contains the original Amiga ROM-files, 100% legally!
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