Green Beret
Green Beret brought to the ZX Spectrum the energetic action of Konami's arcade original, in which a lone commando makes his way through an enemy military base armed at first with only a combat knife. As the game progresses, more powerful weapons appear – a machine gun, a flamethrower or grenades – which the player collects from crates scattered across the levels, and whose power and range differ significantly, so choosing the right weapon for a given section was just as important as skill in dodging enemy fire. The gameplay was built on straightforward forward progress through several thematically distinct levels, from a shanty-filled camp to a tank hangar, where ever more dangerous opponents and end-of-level bosses awaited the player.
On the ZX Spectrum the game retained its fast pace and legible graphics despite the platform's typical colour limitations, where colour clash could occur between colour areas and moving sprites. The controls were sparse but precise – the player could fire sideways and diagonally and duck to take cover, which, given the density of enemies on screen, determined survival. The sound offered only fragmentary gunshot and explosion effects, yet it still fleshed out the atmosphere of the war action enough for the player to feel the tension of advancing through a base full of guard towers.
Reviews of the time praised the game's pace and its fidelity to the arcade original, though they also noted the high difficulty typical of coin-op ports of the era, built around repeated attempts. Green Beret was among the popular run-and-gun titles on the Spectrum, and together with later games it helped establish the military action platformer as a staple of eight-bit catalogues. Today it's more of a challenge for collectors and old-school fans who appreciate its directness and uncompromising pace. The arcade original was made by Konami in 1985 and, in its American release, was known under the different name Rush'n Attack, while the European and Japanese markets knew the game under its original name, Green Beret, under which this ZX Spectrum port was also released.
Why play: Thanks to its brisk pace and faithful adaptation of Konami's arcade original, Green Beret will appeal mainly to collectors and old-school fans willing to accept its high, uncompromising difficulty.
Game 54 of 100 for ZX Spectrum
The same title elsewhere (2)
Green Beret belongs to the run & gun genre, and its home computer versions for 8-bit machines had to manage much more carefully with limited memory and a slower processor than the arcade machine the game was derived from — both conversions have fewer colours, simpler backgrounds and more basic enemy animation than the original. On the Commodore 64, the SID sound chip stands out, giving the gunfire, explosions and accompanying melody a fuller, more distinctive sound, while the Atari version relies on the thinner but still functional sound of the POKEY chip. In terms of actual gameplay — fighting through the base knife in hand and rescuing hostages — both versions follow the same pattern and differ mainly in the sound and small technical details of each machine.
