Many of you that are my age probably haven’t played Green Beret, at least the original arcade version. However, I bet a lot of you have played it’s Nintendo port, which was retitled Rush’n Attack. It was a pretty popular game and it’s something I used to play for hours on end.
I actually didn’t know that Green Beret existed. It wasn’t in any of my local arcades and if it was, I overlooked it for some reason.
So having now played it, it’s pretty much exactly the same as the more familiar version, except the controls, the graphics and the sound are better. Not by a heck of a lot but it is noticeably better and smoother.
My issue with the game is that when you die, you respawn at a checkpoint, as opposed to reappearing on the same screen like an arcade beat’em up game. I think this was a mistake on Konami’s part, as it makes the game much harder and with that, it breeds more frustration, and with that it makes it less likely that players will continue to drop quarters in the machine if they feel like they aren’t advancing in any way.
I found the gameplay of Green Beret to be more difficult and faster than Rush’n Attack, a game I’ve learned to conquer fairly easy. I had some difficulty with this game and couldn’t advance enough in the final level. I ended up rage quitting in frustration with the intent of trying again in the near future.
All in all, this is a good, well-crafted game for its time but the checkpoint respawning just makes it more frustrating than it needs to be.
Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: other side scrolling action games of the classic arcade era or on the classic Nintendo, which narrows it down to about 8 dozen games.
Talking Pulp 