Super Nintendo Entertainment System Super Strike Eagle (USA)
2Super Strike Eagle, known in Japan as F-15 Super Strike Eagle (Ｆ－１５スーパーストライクイーグル, F-15 Supa Sutoraiku Iguru?), is a combat-oriented arcade video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The game involves flying airplanes that tests the player's Sidewinder missile and machine gun firing skills against various non-aligned nations that were historically notorious for housing extremist leaders during the Cold War. The game was released in North America, Europe, and Japan approximately simultaneously.[1] In the Japanese version, real political flags are not used unlike the North American version.
Despite the game's title, it is unrelated to the similarly named F-15 Strike Eagle series.[5]
The character is a pilot flying for the United Nations whose sole objective is to bring various governments around the world back into cooperation with the UN.[2] Each time a military campaign against a certain regime is completed, the flag of the nation in question is again raised at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Libya, Iraq, Cuba, and North Korea offer Soviet-manufactured aircraft like the MiG-27 and the MiG-29 for the player to in order to advance the war effort.[6]
There are various types of targets in the game, including air, land and water targets[2] in an environment that gives players permission to freely roam around the battlefield; limited only by the player's fuel supply. Land targets include nuclear power plants (but often include anti-air weapons and tanks); the player may suffer from radiation sickness after destroying nuclear plants when not at a safe distance to do so.[7] The player will eventually need to use one of his/her limited sorties to have it healed; neglecting to do so will have fatal results.[7] Weapons in the game include guns, missiles, electronic jammers, and bombs. Each mission on every war theatre consists of both mandatory and optional targets.[8] It has been noted by gamers that every in-game weapon has the same explosion graphic assigned to them; regardless of it being an air-to-surface missile or an air-to-air missile.[6]
Players must also strategically plan which targets to destroy; destroying them in the wrong order may hinder the player.Shooting the optional targets results in the accumulation of a higher score which can double as a respect meter for bragging rights. Furthermore, destroying airfields, although not necessarily required to complete a mission, would stop opposing MiG-29 fighters from being ordered by the AI-controlled commander to destroy the player's aircraft.[6] In the more advanced missions, players can shoot chemical weapons factories and terrorist camps for bonus points. Although the game cannot be saved through a video game battery, there are a number of passwords the player can use to resume his/her mission at the appropriate place. Crashing the airplane and being killed in action will result in the flags (located at the United Nations building in New York) being lowered to half-mast. Dying in the game will also produce the playing of Taps while the world mourns the deceased pilot.[7]
There is a practice round and then the player is thrown into real-life combat zones in order to test the skills learned in the practice round. Each combat zone is divided into a day level and a night level; day levels are considered to be an introduction while the night levels are considered to be the coup de grâce and allow the player to finish of the last of the dictator's defenses.[6] Targets become progressively difficult to destroy. Unlike most shooter games, the player only has one plane. If the player crashes, the game is over and a screen indicating the nations (if any) that were reclaimed by the player displays.