Seek and Destroy, from Epic MegaGame's Safari Software division, is one of those fairly simple but totally compelling games that quietly arrive one day (if you're fortunate enough to work in the gaming press) and then proceed to take over your life. Seek and Destroy borrows parts from several other games, including that hoary old classic, Choplifter. As in Choplifter, your goal will often be to set down your chopper to collect prisoners or other passengers, and then ferry them back to base. But where Choplifter was a side scrolling game, Seek and Destroy offers a god's eye view and full freedom of motion, somewhat akin to the Jungle Strike games that were quite popular on the Sega Genesis a few years back. And unlike both of these games, Seek and Destroy also offers the option of taking a tank (complete with rotating turret) out on missions, much like Time Warner Interactive's Return Fire. So now you know where the game sits in the overall family tree of gaming, eh?
Your vehicles have limited ammo (aside from a chaingun which never runs out of slugs), fuel and armor. As you fly (or drive) around blowing up buildings, you'll often find "power-ups" in the form of more of these limited resources. You'll also find medals, and these can be traded in for better weapons between missions. Depending on your choice of difficulty settings, you may have to land to pick up all these goodies (this may be a good time to mention that the game is nice and easy on the easy setting, and plenty tough on the difficult setting).
Your enemies include fixed gun emplacements, tanks, infantry and choppers, all of which come in a variety of lethalities. There are also many different structures to destroy. And since these structures hide the power-ups, you'll want to destroy them whenever possible! Napalm works wonders here. In addition to napalm, you also get rockets, various kinds of missiles, air strikes, the chaingun, and several "special" weapons, including a bomb that'll also do a nice job of wiping out a cluster of enemy emplacements.
Seek and Destroy offers no network play, no mission editor, and no big name actors digitized into cut scenes. But none of that matters! Instead, we're offered a smart looking, simple-to-get-into game that provides those visceral thrills (you remember - the ones that come from blowing up lots and lots of stuff) that used to be the hallmark of an excellent shooter. In other words, what we have here is a game that's just a helluva lot of fun to play. And that is what gaming is all about. You've got nothing to lose except a huge hunk of free time. Install the shareware version from this month's CD and check this game out!
