Review: The lost patrol (Amiga)

mjnurney

we live as we dream. Alone.
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The lost patrol

Another reason why i return the Amiga as a game machine, i played this at a friends house in 1990 (1?) and i was blown away by the sheer awesome music, graphics and adventure type game play. A stunning moment on the Amiga no doubt.

The game.

The game is set during the Vietnam War, where a U.S. helicopter crashes in remote Central Highlands of Vietnam. Seven American soldiers, survivors of the crash, face the task of trekking across 58 miles of harsh terrain infested with booby traps and enemy soldiers and make their way to the nearest U.S. military base.

The team has little food or ammunition and their chances of making it home are slim.

and the game beings...

The player assumes the role of Sergeant Charlie Weaver, the only man left to take charge of the surviving crew. The player must learn the characteristics of the team, as completing the mission may hinge upon character reactions to the player's decisions. Try to keep the group's morale high or you may be killed by them. You must also stop fatigue and managing the dwindling resources (food rations, ammunition, hand grenades and Claymore mines) all this and fight the VC too!

The game presents its self as a MAP screen and you use the mouse to guide your soldiers around the area, this may seem simple and boring but it is far from it. Action screens will appear at a moments notice as VC solders stumble upon you or you fall in to a trap. Some of the actions scenes are shown here (Wiki info)

Hand to hand combat - Scouts would at times encounter lone VC guerrilla guarding an arms or supply bunker. The player must defeat the opponent in unarmed combat, using a choice of keyboard or joystick controls. If the player fails to defeat the opponent before a timer expires, that soldier is assumed missing in action and is no longer available.

Firefight - The player mans an M-60 machine gun against a group of the VC, trying to be neither killed nor over-run; hand grenades may be also used against the enemy.

Machine gun nest - The squad encounters one or more entrenched machine gun positions of the NVA and the player must eliminate them by hurling hand grenades from the first-person perspective.

Snipers - The squad is pinned down by enemy sniper fire, requiring the sniper(s) to be located and disposed of. The player can chose which member of the team will assume the role of the shooter, with skill levels varying. To locate the position of the sniper(s), a magnified view of the terrain is visible through the scope of the player's rifle, which he must use to locate the flashes of enemy fire.

Mine field - The squad would at times have to cross mine fields laid by enemy forces to defend an entry to a bunker. Mine fields are visible on the map, but the booby traps are not (the only solution is to move slowly in an areas that may be mined). To successfully navigate the mine field, the player must choose a member of the squad to crawl through the minefield, stabbing at the ground along the way to check for explosives, before time limit runs out.

The player may always try to retreat from each encounter, but this is risky, too. The group may also encounter local Vietnamese (Montagnards in the mountains) civilians, including while entering villages visible on the map. A range of options is then available, from searching area to killing one or even all of civilians. The player may also attempt to communicate with the locals (in a friendly talk or a hard interrogation) using the key words typed from keyboard.

All in all Lost Patrol must be included in any serious games collection! this is fantastic, it even has video shots in the game. But..

its not for the faint hearted. this is a hard game to complete without cheating and to be honest... i still have only just got on to the second screen of the map :)

but I've only been playing 20 years!

Amiga 512K
OSC/ECS
whdload version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZPPfIu3ayo

mike.
 

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Nice one mate, actually The Lost Patrol is one of my favourite games for the Amiga. And that atmospheric music... :inlove:
 
A good game for sure but eagle eye sight is needed to detect the snipers that usually murdered me:Doh:

Am i the only one to find the combat/beat-em up section difficult and annoying?

Did anyone else accidentally hold onto the grenade for too long on the operation wolf type section?
 
the sniper was hard but the grenades always caused me problems too!
 
Loved this game too. So atmposheric.
Was surfing and found this site dedicated to The Lost Patrol.
Check it out, very nice site :)
 
One of my faves, it was awesome from start to ... finish (never got to the finish though), including video, great music, wonderful gfx...
 
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