The [BLANK] Strike series of isometric helicopter shooters was a big part of my early childhood, playing games like Desert Strike and Jungle Strike on my Mega Drive. They were great to play around with for a while, but I don’t remember having long sessions with them – more something to turn on every now and then.

With Urban Strike, the series made the leap to 3D on the Saturn and PlayStation, with Nuclear Strike being released on PlayStation a year later. It took a few more years for the game to be ported to the N64, with clear graphics, but the game not taking advantage of the system, as there’s no analogue movement.

Nuclear Strike is a faithful conversion of the 2D games into 3D. If you’ve played the older games, then this will be instantly familiar. You do have more control over the helicopter (using the Z and R buttons to strafe), and the 3D adds more clarity to where enemies are in relation to you. Everything moves extremely smoothly, and the core gameplay is inherently fun.

That said, the game does get tiring very quickly. You do have varying missions (including protecting people, which is always a joy), and you can often break off from your objective to clear other areas and find fuel, armour, and ammo, but ultimately you’re doing the same thing many times.

One thing that is nice is that you can hop into different vehicles – such as a hover craft, tank, plane, and other helicopters. These play similar to the helicopter, but the slight differences make them feel like a nice change of pace, even if you are doing the same things.

This is a great game to play a scenario a day, or something like that, but not great in long spurts.

I did find that the graphics have aged poorly, due to the heavy reliance on textures. It makes the game feel like you’re playing with miniatures atop a blurry printout of a satellite photo. I can’t help but think that a simpler graphical style would have worked a lot better.

Nuclear Strike is an enjoyable, albeit repetitive, game.

Fun

The game’s best moments, such as the missions in which you have to escort convoys and protect key personnel, are involving enough to make you feel like you’re engaging in a real life military game. You get three life bars (armour, ammo and fuel) which you must replenish separately, so you have to be pretty sharp with your tactical thinking when flying into heavily guarded areas. You can easily lose two or three lives in quick sucession, because if ou crash due to a lack of fuel your health and armour gauges won’t be refilled. Some sections can be frustratingly tough.

Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #39. Review Score: 82%

Remake or remaster?

A new game in the series – as a lower budget digital game – would be great.

Official ways to get the game.

There’s no official way to get Nuclear Strike