You'll definitely be hooked once you engage yourself in the campaigns and get used to the strategic gameplay.
Graphics:
It's an isometric third-person perspective that lets you move freely in all directions. The game consists of 5 campaigns that are divided into several missions each (the missions are really more like objectives than actual missions as they all have to be cleared in the same go) the maps are vast and have many different areas and details which makes for a varied visual experience. The main sprite is big and nicely made. The enemies consist of everything from foot-soldiers and jeeps to missile-pods and tanks. All sprites are very well animated and move smoothly, as does the scrolling. The explosions and weapon fire in general seem to have been done with loads of care for details. The cut-scenes are top-of-the-line with a cool story with more than a glance toward the gulf-war. As you live up to certain conditions in the missions you'll get to see cut-scenes of secret agents running to the chopper, entering enemy compounds etc. The intro and menus are impressive too! As you press start you can look at the technical info on all the enemy vehicles in the campaign, and as you stroll through the menu you'll get nice, big pictures (some are even animated) of the topic. This is just a very nice looking game with one of the best designs ever for this kind of game.
92%
Sound:
The music is good and suits the gameplay and the general layout of the game. The sound effects are effective but nothing REALLY special.
74%
Game-play:
The open-ended idea of letting you choose in which order to complete each mission in the campaigns falls a bit flat because of the fact that your fuel reserves are depleted VERY quickly so you always feel like you're under pressure. This is a good thing too of course, as it keeps the adrenaline flowing. Sometimes the aiming is a bit off, which becomes painfully clear in missions where you destroy buildings or airfields where you think you hit the target and you keep firing but nothing happens even though the target is dead-on. You actually have to listen to the sound to know if you're causing damage or not. This is of course a small fault in a truly great game but I thought it should be mentioned. The many power ups in each mission can be hidden in buildings, rest on trucks, lying at the landing zones or just randomly scattered throughout the map. Desert strike is very strategic and if you go in all-guns-blazing you'll find yourself running out of fuel and ammo fairly quickly. Press start and you get to view the mission objectives, tactical info about the enemy vehicles and, of course, the strategic map of the campaign. You can watch where enemy tanks are at the moment, where the radars are, where you can pick up additional fuel (very important) and so on. Another cool and deep thing in the game is that things have consequences, like if you take out the radar systems the enemy gun-turrets have a limited range of vision. If you rescue a downed pilot, he will be available as a co-pilot in later campaigns. There's also a lot of humor added into the cut-scenes and it makes the game worth playing through. It is just a very good video-game, period. There are three different control methods to choose from and the controls are very responsive and good.
86%
Lastability:
You'll definitely be hooked once you engage yourself in the campaigns and get used to the strategic gameplay. This is the kind of game where you think "Ahh, one more try" after you've failed the mission. It's just good fun, and the fact that you can tackle missions and actually whole campaigns the way you want keeps you coming back for another run. And another. There is also the choice of co-pilots to try out.
79%
Overall:
An awesome game that is fun to play and is very well presented.
87%