Laser Squad

Thomas Wellicome casts his bloodshot eyes over another retro game

Contrary to most ST gamers Laser Squad was a must-have game for me. After reading a review of the game in Zero magazine, which included a somewhat amusing storyboard interpretation, there was simply no other choice.

Laser Squad is an overhead turn-based strategy game in a style, which, if anyone was inspired enough to go and play Lords of Chaos after my last review, will be instantly familiar. It's from the same people, though being a somewhat earlier game, isn't quite as polished as the aforementioned. Its roots lie in the seedy world of the Commodore 64, a past which, graphically at least, it doesn't seem to have quite escaped. However, once again this is a game you should persevere with as the rewards are rich.

Set in some sort of distant future, where evil corporations and aliens run rampage through the universe (Sound familiar, anyone?), your band of trusty rebels must blast, maim and generally upset anyone silly enough to interfere with their plan to turn everyone into flower-waving children of Pan. Or maybe I made that last bit up. But anyway, blasting is the name of the game and no self-respecting Battle Droid is going to be impressed by a limp pansy and a book of poetry.

There are five scenarios for players to get to grips with, each of which can be played in one or two player modes. In the one-player game you always control the rebels, however, change to two players and someone gets to thwart the do-gooding rebels' plans by, er, killing all of them; or blowing up their atomic generators; or, in the case of the last scenario, melting their faces with poisonous spit. All good jolly fun. The scenarios range from assassinating an evil corporate type named Sterner Regnix, to saving some of your chums from a mining corporation that's keeping them hostage (Damn those evil mining corporations, have they no shame!). Then again maybe fighting through some sort of rain forest gone mad against giant frogs and some things that look like fraggles (from the kids' program Fraggle Rock) is more your cup of tea.

In the one-player game there are up to seven difficulty levels to choose from. The difficulty level affects how quickly and cleverly the enemy reacts to your presence and how much money you get to equip your rebels. Setting the difficulty to one will result in you having vast wads of cash to kit out your troopers in tons of armour, and have them wielding all sorts of weapons from light sabres to rocket launchers. Set the difficulty level to seven, however, and you'll be taking on the enemy in your underwear armed only with a limp pilchard. Well almost. Making the most of your budget and equipping your squad to the job is one of the vital parts of Laser Squad. Attempt to rescue your pals from the underground mine with no explosives is a no-hoper. Unless you intend to butcher everyone in the opposing squad. One of the great things about this game is the somewhat non-linear approach to beating the game. There are a number of ways to do it, and it's up to you to work out which one is the best. Level one can be beaten by stalking about picking off droids one by one until you get the opportunity to eliminate the shady-sounding Sterner Regnix in his luxury pad. Alternatively you can get one chap tooled up with a rocket launcher and slowly reduce Sterner's pad (and Sterner himself, of course) to a few splinters and a couple of bricks. Further depth can added to the game by attempting to take on the enemy using a wholly inappropriate range of weapons. Using pistols and daggers against the finest droids in the imperial army will make for a somewhat interesting game. Well probably a rather short one anyway.

Experimentation is the key. Learning the best way to deploy the rather limited number of men at your disposal is essential. You also need to understand the likely tactics of the moronic intelligence of the computer. Er, yes, if there is a fault in Laser Squad it is the fact that after a while the computer becomes predictable. In fact the computer is so silly that on rare occasions on difficult levels it can take almost 20 minutes to move one of its nasties. The retarded computer-controlled opponents don't really become too boring though - although you can guess what they're doing, you, for the most part, have no idea where they are. The key to avoiding getting reduced to a small collection of internal organs splattered over a moon base is to sneak about using the rather cannily titled "opportunity fire". Basically what this means is, if you have enough action points left at the end of your turn, any of your characters that spot a foe will be able to let loose a few shots (or a lot) and floor him before he gets a chance to get a shot himself. Unfortunately the enemy is quite capable of pulling the same trick on you.

One of the most endearing features of Laser Squad is the interaction you have with the landscape. Firing a rocket launcher at a wall in most cases causes it to collapse. Firing a machine gun at a gas canister causes it to explode. Standing too close to the gas canister when it explodes turns your chaps into barbecued rebel. Standing your men over dead opposition allows you to pick up whatever they were carrying. Beware though, as the more weight your chaps carry the slower they move. There are loads of other neat touches as well. Kill a certain member of the enemy on the "Rescue from the Mines" level and searching his body will give you a key which allows you to access the video surveillance equipment. This effectively allows you to spy on the enemy. You'll know for a change that they're actually right behind you, pointing an extremely large machine gun at the back of your head.

The graphics in Laser Squad are perhaps not the most earth-shattering you'll see on the Atari ST. Animation is virtually non-existant. But they're good enough to capture the atmosphere perfectly and they're also extremely detailed. You will, for example, be able to explore the delights of the Omni Corporation's toilet block, if you decide to take a break from butchering its security staff and blasting its computers. Sound is, to put it mildly, awful. Various ludicrous burps and whistles accompany the action, though the theme tune is not too bad and special mention should go to the death screams of the various combatants. Particularly chilling, and a reminder that it's not at all nice to vaporize a six-foot high frog with venomous breath. It's probably endangered, don't you know...

Control is also a bit of a bugbear. Whereas the later Lords of Chaos uses a slick mouse-driven interface, Laser Squad uses a rather clunky joystick affair, which is cumbersome at first. Also annoying is the way your rebel warriors always arrive at a scenario with their weapons in their bags. You have to waste valuable action points kitting them out before you can actually get down to the nitty gritty. I mean what do they think they're playing at. What sort of marine arrives in a combat zone with his gigantic heavy laser in his kit bag? More proof if any was needed that the rebels are a bunch of pansies. Or extremely stupid.

Criticisms aside, Laser Squad is monstrously addictive when you get into it. It's a gem and one that is likely to appeal to even some of you ardent anti-strategy zealots out there.

Those of you who like Laser Squad will probably be interested in its descendants on the PC. The various X-Com games are equally and annoyingly just as addictive. Furthermore a sequel (which I believe is called Laser Squad Nemesis) has been kicking about for a while on the internet. It's some sort of bizarre e-mail multi-player game.

Tips

• Use opportunity fire as much as possible.
• Don't get too excited with armour. It's a waste of cash on higher difficulty levels, and just slows your men down. Concentrate on keeping your men alive in other ways.
• If your men keep panicking it's because you're not very good. Try keeping some of your men alive as no-one likes being left on their own in a moon base with some pyschotic corporation soldiers.
• Take explosives on the third and fourth scenarios.
• The rather hard droids on scenario four aren't so hard if you shoot them with a good gun, or even better, explosives, from behind. Not very gentlemanly (So what is a gentlemanly way to put explosives near people?! - Ed) but much more fun. Position your troops to sneak up on them as they try to blow your generators rather than trying to outshoot them. Bend rather than break. All the other droids, however, should be vaporized on sight. Try positioning your men at the end of the long corridors and shooting all droids until the nasty ones turn up. Then dodge behind cover until they turn away from you to blow things up. Finally sneak up behind them and let rip into their behinds.
• Don't get carried away with running around trying to collect ammo on scenario four as by the time you have unlocked all the boxes the enemy will have blown up your power generators.
• On scenario three make sure you move the prisoners to the corner of the cells before you blow up the doors.
• On long straight tunnels you can increase your shooting accuracy by moving the sights in a straight line right to the end of the map, rather than just to the enemy. A guaranteed hit.
• Scenario five, err good luck, it's easy enough on the lower levels, but on difficulty level seven it's a toughie.

thomas@myatari.net

MyAtari magazine - Review #2, October 2003