Game

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf

1992 · BlackBerry OS · Super Nintendo Entertainment System · Sega Mega Drive/Genesis · DOS · Amiga · Game Boy Advance · Shooter · Strategy

79IGDB player score
66 ratings

Previously Take

A respectable 79 average that never found its audience. A shooter, from EA with warfare in its DNA — loud, fast, and built for repeat runs. A single-player game with no interest in being anything else. Respect.

About this game

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf, commonly known as Desert Strike, is a shoot 'em up video game released by Electronic Arts (EA) in February 1992 for Sega's Mega Drive. The game was later released on several other formats such as the SNES, including a much upgraded version for the Amiga home computer. The game was inspired by the Gulf War and depicts a conflict between an insane Middle Eastern dictator, General Kilbaba, and the United States. The player controls a lone Apache helicopter and attempts to destroy enemy weapons and installations, rescue hostages and capture enemy personnel, while managing supplies of fuel and ammunition.

After terrorist leader General Kilbaba has seized control of an unnamed "small but wealthy" Gulf emirate, overthrown the monarchy and installed himself as dictator, the United States sends a lone helicopter to destroy his army in a series of swift strikes. The game's plot was felt by commentators to be a thinly disguised reference to the Gulf War, while comparisons were drawn between Kilbaba and Saddam Hussein, and between the game's unnamed desert setting and Iraq