Hell yeah! As with Broforce (2014), some games just gotta be ultra macho and full of explosions and stuff!

And the Jungle Strike game from 1993 was just that, available on the Mega Drive (Genesis) and SNES. It was proper belting.

Jungle Strike: The Sequel to Desert Strike

Yes, this game was titled with the suffix “The Sequel to Desert Strike”. Just in case dumb gamers couldn’t quite work it out.

Desert Strike was the 1992 shoot ’em up romp from EA that was a nice hit on the 16-bit consoles of the day. It also got ported to MS-DOS and the Game Boy.

The 1993 sequel has all of that and more, making it to the Game Gear, PlayStation Portable (PSP), and Amiga.

This is the title we remember playing most from the Mega Drive, thinking it was an exclusive on Sega’s console. When it wasn’t.

We’d dig on it at our mate Guy’s house and think it was pretty epic. Violent, you know? The Mega Drive seemed to push the whole violence shtick more than the SNES ever did.

But the game also had an epic intro. Just look at that in action! Hell yeah!

In Jungle Strike, you have to wipe our two notorious South American drug lords. Carlos Ortega and Ibn Kilbaba from Desert Strike are your foes.

They plan to attack the US with a nuclear device, so it’s your job as a lone special force to hunt the bastards down and shoot them to death.

Now the game engine was a failed attempt at a flight simulator, with EA turning it into a shooty boom sort of game. You take control of a helicopter and wreak havoc.

And yeah, you got some fancy early FMV with the MS-DOS version. Including terrific game acting right there.

Although other versions didn’t get any of this. Instead relying on more traditional basic animations with text, made famous by Ninja Gaiden (1988) on the NES.

Mixing strategy and action together quite nicely, it was very much a fun pick up and play kind of title.

As you pilot the helicopter around, you’d need to be wary of the baddies shooting at you. Too much damage and you’d blow up!

Now, obviously, the game parodies the Gulf War. But it was definitely there to target young lads as well eager to revel in guns and explosions stuff.

The game was well received at the time by the gaming press and has aged pretty well. It’s good fun! And a classic example of the appeals of retro gaming.

Even if the jingoism was off the charts, with little sense of tongue-in-cheek satire or some such. Instead… explosions. Boom!

A Bunch of Jungle Strike Ports

Okay, to cash in on the success of the series EA began releasing it across as many platforms as possible.

The developer was on a role, its title Road Rash was also making waves.

As you can see, the Game Boy version was one of the most primitive. Its sound effects are like something off the first Atari.

The Game Gear version was more advanced, featuring colour and all that.

But the basics of the title were all the same. Shoot stuff up. Revel in the mayhem. And embrace the world of early ’90s gaming.