18 January 2016

Retro Review: Rescue Mission

Rescue Mission

Released: 1988

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sega

Having recently become the proud owner of a lovely 26″ Philips CRT television for the princely sum of £10, I am now able to enjoy a genre of gaming that I once loved; the light gun game.

Modern televisions are amazing but sadly light gun games such as Virtua Cop and Point Blank won’t work on them due to how the screen is made up of pixels.

I owned a light phaser for the Sega Master System when I was a kid and absolutely loved it! Some of my favourite games were Operation Wolf, Rambo 3 and Wanted. The first model of Master System came with 2 games built in, these were Hang On and Safari Hunt. Many hours were spent shooting birds and rabbits on this Duck Hunt clone.

One game I didn’t get chance to play at the time was Rescue Mission. A team of medics are sent behind enemy lines to rescue your wounded comrades. The twist is that the medic is controlling a hand cart and you must protect him.

You are essentially the air support for the medic as he is assaulted from all sides by enemy soldiers. The enemies come thick and fast and you must shoot them before they destroy the cart. If they do shoot their rockets you must quickly knock them out of the sky before they blow up your team.

You can’t just shoot like a lunatic and have to be quite precise as you can accidentally kill the people that you are trying to save. If you do save them they leave behind an item or smart bomb that can be used to clear the screen of enemies. The game quickly becomes very frantic as enemies swarm your medic with bullets and rockets flying all over the place.

I enjoyed discovering Rescue Mission after all this time and found that it had something different to offer from other light gun games. It’s by no means a classic but if you have a copy of the game and a light phaser to hand it is definitely worth firing up.

Graphics – Nicely detailed sprites with some charm, especially when one of your comrades is shot and a little angel flies up to heaven. 5

Sound – The music and sound aren’t anything special however they are pleasant enough. 4

Playability – Amazingly my light phaser still works and even better it is very accurate meaning the game is still fun to play. 6

Re-Playability – Rescue Mission is best enjoyed in short blasts, (pun very much intended) but like most light gun games it can become repetitive. 5

Overall – I very much enjoyed my time spent with Rescue Mission. It will never be described as one of the classic light gun games, but the interesting concept of protecting your medic means it is well worth checking out. 5

Review by Chris (co-host of 60 Minutes With and The Same Coin)