Special Forces

Special Forces is a tactical action game with stealth elements created by MicroProse and released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. It's the sequel of Airborne Ranger, an 8-bit game released five years earlier.

While Airborne Ranger was developed internally at MicroProse, MicroProse commissioned the creation of Special Forces to a small studio called Sleepless Knights. The game designer was Jim Bambra.

You control a team of four soldiers who will need to perform several special missions, including rescuing hostages, assassinating evil criminals, destroying enemy bases, etc. It's not a real strategy game like Jagged Alliance, and it's not turn-based like Laser Squad. There is not much time to think in Special Forces since everything happens in real-time: you have to act, hide and run; otherwise, not all of the team will make it back to the base.

However, you will have to plan the missions carefully in advance, choosing the right soldiers - each one has his skills - and selecting the right equipment. There is a limit on the number of objects you can carry, so you must read the brief and choose correctly. The game won't advise you if you forget something necessary for the mission. In most cases, you will lose because you don't have the proper object.

The graphics are limited to 16 colors on the screen - the developers could have done something more on the Amiga or PC - but the pixel art quality is very high. Especially in the jungle environment, you will think this is a VGA game.

Special Forces received excellent reviews, and it's still one of the most appreciated titles in this genre. It's just a pity that you can't play it with a friend in co-op, but if you are a fan of Rambo and Commando, you cannot miss it.