Platoon the movie came out in 1986, and was directed by Oliver Stone. Platoon was heralded as one of the best, most gruesome Vietnam War movies of it’s time.
Platoon the game, created by Data East, attempted to bring the movie to your PC. If you like action fighter games that bring back a sense of old school nostalgia than Platoon is for you. The graphics and sound are decent, with a nice opening screen. The movements are 2D and scrolling to the right, and left.
The game consists of walking around a jungle avoiding tripwires, and Vietnamese fighters that jump out of trees to kill you.
You are given 4 hits before your character dies, and you pickup various ammo and baggage along the trails. Occasionally, Vietnamese guerillas will pop up out of the ground to shoot you, so it’s important to stay alert while playing and be ready to jump. You have a morale meter that measures how your characters morale is doing, along side of that you have your ammo meter. You can shoot, jump, and throw grenades. I grew up playing Nintendo, Atari, and Commodore 64 which excelled in game play for their day, and I have to say the graphics and game play between the PC and 8-Bit platforms for this game was not significantly different. In my opinion they could have done a
better job with putting together a game that went along with the movie. The music, sound effects, and graphic detail are mediocre. I have to say the intro to the game makes you feel like you are about to start a game that puts you in the movie, and I appreciate that.
Charlie Sheen played the main action fighter in the movie, and is most-likely the action figure you play in this version of the Platoon game. The music definitely keeps your heart beating while the game play can be tedious and boring at times. All-in-all the game is not bad. You may also enjoy Ikari Warriors and Commando if you are into first person action-shooter guerilla war games.
Data East did an amazing job creating multi-platform versions of the game, with very little variation.
