CodeName Hell Squad
Intro
Good old-fashioned point'n'click with spot effects and great animation. Guide your marines around an alien planet, trying to find out what's going on.
Review
Finally released in 2000 and eminently worth it, CodeName Hell Squad is a vastly enjoyable game featuring image-captured character animation, digitized sound and hand-drawn backdrops.
Played on an expanded A1200 you're treated to a fullscreen FMV intro, which to be honest looks like a really bad pr0no and features some of the worst acting and voices I've ever seen, in anything, ever...but I was still impressed at seeing this fullscreen video complete with voices. The game starts with your four marines crash-landed in a clearing. I didn't bother reading the manual, and I probably didn't miss much, so I don't know why they're there, or where "there" is. Control is by keyboard/joystick (much the same as Wasted Dreams), with actions being dependent on situation - for instance, if you have a crowbar as your active inventory item, the 'use item' icon will appear whenever you can use it on whatever you're standing by. You have four marines which have a number of shield points. You only control one marine at a time and can switch between them at will; the inventory is shared between all. You frequently get shot at by aliens running onto the screen, but holding down the fire button will quickly and easily despatch of them. Switching to another marine then recharges the other marines' shields, so it's hard to kill a marine as long as you switch around and don't trigger one of the few death sequences. Having four controllable characters means a) you can position them strategically around the gameworld, so you don't have to backtrack; b) you can still continue if one of them dies; c) you can solve puzzles which require people in different places (for instance, using one character to retrieve an item but then becomes trapped, switching to another character and using the shared inventory to use that item to continue the game up to the point that a new item is retrieved to release the trapped character. Inconsistent, but clever).
The game, then. The graphics are gorgeous, beautifully hand-drawn with plenty of animation. The marines all move fluidly in 8 directions and often have one-off animations to perform specific tasks - they look to be digitally captured. This is true of almost all characters on the game. There's a few other humans who seem not to have noticed they're surrounded by alien marines (who run onto the screen when you enter a new screen, but are very easy to kill) - the man in the hardware store is snoozing with his feet up. Maybe I should have read the intro in the manual; it might have shed light on why this guy hasn't noticed his town is overrun by aliens. The puzzles are inventory-based and fairly easy, and you tend to aquire items either just before or just after you need them, so there's rarely a "use everything on everything" moment, and gives a good pace to the game. I only got stuck once, and the solution was ingenious as I had to retake an item I'd used and thought was finished with - unusual in an adventure game. The game is fast-paced - partially due to the aliens running in and shooting you, or being present on screens when you first enter, but they're all in fixed locations and stay dead once killed. You only have 8 game save slots, and the game will take you a good few hours to complete. It's large - 46 playable screens and another 30 of corridors and caverns in two of the mazes...yes, mazes, but luckily they're generally one-in-one-out screens and you can easily navigate as long as you're methodical.
I really enjoyed this game. The graphics, the smoothness and abundance of animations and the sound effects are all spot on and really add to the atmosphere. The fact that there was little to endear you to the characters or their cause didn't detract from the gameplay at all - it just let you concentrate on solving the puzzles. Shooting aliens made it more fast-paced, and the degree of difficulty in shooting (i.e. none) made it fun to just run on screen and waste the green guys.
Althought the game is linear, I'd reply it a second time just for the sheer fun of it. Well worth playing.
Screenshots
Notes
You can still buy this on CD from eBay.co.uk!
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This game is available FREE on the cover CD of Amiga Future Issue 80!