Hostage: Rescue Mission

The Good
This is a very early Amiga game, yet still to date one of my favorites. After booting, the very first thing you see is a street, and immediately, you hear the screeching sound of a car abruptly braking and terrorists run out of it. The game plunges you right into the setting: It is a strictly no non-sense affair. Except for the brief selection box where you choose the difficulty setting, no more game elements appear. No main menu, no "game over" screen, no high scores (or even scores). It's brilliance in game design in terms of atmosphere.

Terrorists have overrun an embassy, your mission is to take them out (or otherwise defuse the situation) without harming the hostages.

The game itself is basically made out of two sub-games: In the first part, you have to get your three snipers from the starting point to three possible positions from which they can snipe. Getting just one to any location will get you to the second part, but the more positions you cover, the better you can snipe the target in the second game. Going to the positions is not that easy as spotlights are sweeping the streets, and terrorists will open fire on you as soon as they see you. Obviously, some positions require you to run farther, putting you at higher risk of getting shot.

Part two is introduced by a short animation sequence showing your other three team members rappelling onto the top of the embassy building. Now you can choose between two actions: Using a sniper to scope one side of the embassy and take out hostages as soon as they appear in a window, or rappel down the embassy and intervene.

The game is then a semi-first-person shooter. However, it's more a business of finding the terrorists and killing them rather than a mindless keep-shooting matter. You can also rescue the terrorists (kind of Counter-Strike-style) by leading them to a certain room in the building.

This indoor sequence is incredible in terms of atmosphere. A silent music plays in the background and picks up as terrorists approach.

In the second part, all "actors" play together: If one of your men in the building walks to a window, your sniper can see his silhouette (and, of course, shoot it). You can also take out your men as they rappel down the embassy, if you feel like it.

It's fun. It doesn't really sound exciting when you read about it, but this game has a certain edge to it.

The Bad
Well... unfortunately, the formula kind of gets boring after a while. The first stage isn't too hard, you can get at least one sniper to the easiest spot, and that's all it takes. Most of the time, you'll do most of the action inside the building anyways. Walking in the embassy and chasing terrorists is cool, but the embassy is always the same map and not too big, so before too long you've seen it all. The different difficulty level don't make much of a difference either.

The Bottom Line
It's a great game and I've enjoyed it a lot. You'll abandon it after a while... but after some time, you'll pick it back up again and start playing again. As I mentioned in the introduction, I love the straightforward approach of this game. It's solid but not drowned in useless gadgets and gimmicks. Just a good game.