Guerrilla War

Guerrilla War

Arcade - Cabinet - USA.

Developer SNK Publisher SNK Published 1987-??-?? Platforms Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Commodore 64, PC Booter, ZX Spectrum Genres Action, Scrolling shooter, Shooter Themes War Series Guerrilla War

Guerrilla War is a run and gun developed and published by SNK for the arcade in 1987, and subsequently ported to the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and ZX Spectrum. A heavily altered version was also made for the NES. In the game, you play as either Ernesto "Che" Guevara or Fidel Castro in their attempt to invade Cuba to overthrow dictator, Fulgencio Batista. The appearance is similar to Commando, but with a unique control style.

Like most run and guns, the joystick moves the player's character, but unlike most others, the character continues to face the same direction no matter which way you press. To turn the player, you must rotate the joystick, otherwise the player will strafe across the screen. This control system adds a unique twist (pun intended) to the game play. Time Soldiers, also published by SNK in 1987, uses this scheme as well. When playing the game in MAME, I emulate a rotating joystick by using the shoulder buttons on my gamepad, and someone also created a hack that uses the more traditional movement, but neither version is as good as a rotating joystick.

Personal

I first saw this game in the arcade room of the Lakeland Arena in the late 1980s. My parents never gave me quarters, so I didn't play the game, but I enjoyed watching other people play it. Once, I watched my older brother play it, but he didn't get very far. Around 1990, I first played the NES port and loved it. I have since played the arcade game through MAME, but I have never made any attempt to get good at it.

I do not own this game, nor have I beaten it.

Review

4	4	6	5	4

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• As run and guns go, this one is fairly well-made. There are numerous guns, each is nice to use, you can ride in tanks, the environment changes in each level, harder enemies appear as you progress, and there is variety among the bosses.
• The arcade strafing movement while using a rotating joystick to turn the player was pretty innovative, and they made good use of it in the design of the maps.
• The arcade game has really nice graphics for the time.
• The game has a good story.
• Having the enemy use refugees as human shields makes the game more complex.

Bad

• When you defeat the end boss's turrets, he just runs away. Lame!

Ugly

• The game is unbelievably hard. If you want to beat it, you have to slowly sneak your way across every inch of the map in order to prevent from being overwhelmed by enemies. This makes the game boring to watch and very un-thematic.
• All of the home computer ports are awful.

Media

Box Art

• 

  US arcade cabinet. Nice cohesive art, attractive, and accurately depicts the game.

• 

  US arcade marquee. Pretty good art, but it could use some gunfire.

• 

  US arcade cabinet art. Again, nicely drawn, but it doesn't really get across the "war" portion of the title.

• 

  European Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum releases uses this box which adds some text around a photo of the arcade cabinet. Pretty uninspired.

• 

  European Commodore 64 and PC Booter releases use this box. The art is intense and accurately depicts the game, and I love the barbed wire and camouflage on the title, but why did they make Che look like Stallone?

Documentation

• 

  Arcade manual.

• 

  Japanese flyer, front.

• 

  Japanese flyer, back.

• 

  Arcade flyer.

• 

  European ad for home computers.

• 

  European ad for home computers.

Maps

• 

  Arcade, level 1.

• 

  Arcade, level 2.

• 

  Arcade, level 3.

• 

  Arcade, level 4.

• 

  Arcade, level 5.

• 

  DOS, level 1.

• 

  DOS, level 2.

• 

  DOS, level 3.

• 

  DOS, level 4.

• 

  DOS, level 5.

• 

  ZX Spectrum.

Videos

Longplay, arcade.

Longplay, Commodore 64.

Longplay, ZX Spectrum.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Pass	All of the characters are Central American, including the heroes.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Guerrilla War
Japanese	ゲバラ	Gebara	Guevara

Links