Platoon - for NES

Platoon, developed and published by Sunsoft in 1988, turns the film of the same name into a mission made up of several very different kinds of play. You command a squad of five soldiers in Vietnam, taking them one at a time and switching as each absorbs the hits that would otherwise end your run, so Platoon is less about a single hero than about a unit that keeps going while anyone is still standing. It stands out among Nintendo Entertainment System shooters for refusing to settle into one shape: each stretch of the story brings its own rules.

It opens in the jungle, scrolling as you pick routes both across and upward, jumping or ducking hazards, destroying a bridge and then finding a village that holds a torch, a map and a trapdoor. Booby traps and air strikes make the ground as dangerous as the soldiers on it. The view then shifts to a first person crawl through tunnels in search of flares and a compass, with the controls changing as an enemy appears or as you search a room. Later you hold a bunker overnight, spending a limited supply of flares to spot targets before they spot you, then race north by compass with two minutes to reach cover, and finally face Sergeant Barnes from a foxhole.

Players still love Platoon for that ambition. In 1988 very few cartridges tried to move you through so many perspectives, and the shift from open jungle to the dark of the tunnels still lands. It is demanding, it expects you to learn its maps, and it rewards players who treat the squad as a resource rather than five lives. For collectors, Platoon is one of the more interesting film adaptations on the Nintendo Entertainment System and a good example of Sunsoft stretching the hardware. It belongs on any shelf that tracks how early console games grew beyond a single idea.

• Genre: Action Shooter
• Players: 1
• Region: NTSC
• Release Year: 1988
• Developer: Sunsoft

Cartridge Only: No Box or Manual
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Condition & Authenticity
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