Previous Next

What a violent little thing you turned out to be, such a sweet lovely baby too. Now you're a mean war machine going by the name of Green Hat and after some nasty Eastern Europeans have captured a whole bunch of your pals, good old Uncle Sam has sent in that khaki-clad, weapon-wielding, ball of nastiness, Green Hat. So much easier than messing about with all that amnesty rubbish and other such bleeding heart organisations. Terry Waite? Pah Terry Waite, send in Green Hat, he'll kick some Red bottom.

Green Hat is so amazingly *hard* that Unca Sam hasn't even given him any weapons; he knows that with the aid of a red stabbing bayonet, America's favourite psychopath should have absolutely no trouble rescuing all his erstwhile chums. None of those nancy rocket launchers for Green Hat, he eats Rambo videos for brekky.

Trouble is that, unlike your blob of a spritely mate Rambo, bullets don't bounce of your epidermis, they actually make a bit of mess of it and are prone to leaving Captain Green Hat dead. Never mind, Green Hat can tear six telephone directories in half and then eat them all up, Rambo can't do that.

Green is dropped into the war-zone, tan glistening with beads of sweat, hair waving in the breeze shouting 'Kickem inna head! Punchem inna face! hehehe' and runs into the scrolling onslaught. Green is a meaty fellow and with the mere flick of a joystick can be persuaded into performing all number of Action Man contortions.

Left and right are the most obvious movements, twanging the stick in these directions causes Green Hat to leg it left and right. Though no gun is supplied, old Green Hat is in possession of an enemy bayonet, a stab on the fire button prods any poor commie swine who get in Green Hat's way, frazzling them to death. If you sanction the right guy then a flame thrower can be picked up (though it's only good for three very deadly shots).

Another handy little manoeuvre is the leap, accessed by pushing the joystick forward and handy for vaulting over any advancing reds (their touch is deadly). Couple this with climbing up and down along the various bits of ladder around the shop and you'll find Green Hat rather agile.

The game is divided amid three sections, the bridge, harbour and missile base, all of which need to be completed if you' re going to get Green Hat to rescue the captives. Each section scrolls left and right and to get to the next section just leg it as far right as you can; at the end of each quadrant there's a fracas with soldiers. Basically you have to kill a whole load of them before being allowed to go further and if you haven't picked up a flamethrower this can become very difficult indeed.

Once the hostages have been recaptured you can happily whizz back to Nunckie Sam with tales of how amazingly HARD you are, won't that be nice?

Imagine's previous arcade conversions haven't been particularly impressive, but Green Beret is, surprisingly, very good - mainly because it's so playable. I'm not overly keen on the sprites and background graphics, but they do their job sufficiently. As for the music - well, it's good stuff, but it's very Galway. In fact, the title screen music is a bit like Galway-on-45... Still, Green Beret is good solid fun and it wouldn't look amiss in any 64 owner's software library.

I suppose the obvious joke to go with this game is 'What do you call 1,000 dead communists?', 'A good start'. Well, the scenario is a bit sick (massacre the mateys syndrome), but as usual the more violent a game is, the more fun it is to play. In fact, Green Beret is very playable and trying to rescue all of your good ole buddies is highly addictive and very challenging. The graphics aren't bad at all and the music is superb, just icing on the cake really. A must for gameplayers

I haven't liked any of the Imagine/Konami conversions so far; though of a fairly high standard, the Ocean programmers have basically been stuck with games that weren't really that good anyway. I thought that would also be true of Green Beret, I really couldn't stand the arcade version, but for some reason the 64 version is much more fun to play. Graphics are okay, they do the job well but not brilliantly, and the sound is great though the most impressive thing is the great gameplay. Green Beret is brill and very addictive and I'd recommend any arcadester to spend his money on this one.

Presentation 79%
Feeble title screen, sufficient instructions and respectable presentation on screen.

Graphics 82%
Lots of variety in backdrops and nice sprites.

Sound 94%
Good belting of Galway 'cinema' title music and in-game drum sounds to drive you on.

Hookability 95%
Clear objectives and uncluttered gameplay make Green Beret instantly playable.

Lastability 92%
Three very tough levels packed full of deliciously killable soldiers.

Value For Money 91%
Quality production and lots of action for your money.

Overall 93%
Makes Rambo and Commando feel like a Sunday stroll through the park.