U.N. Squadron

"Three fighter jets against an entire army? I'll take it!"

I like U.N. Squadron. I always have. I even like the botched SNES cart, though there were things about it that made me want to tear my hair out in frustration. Anyways, this review isn't about the SNES version; it's for the original arcade cabinet. Read on to find out why this game rocks.

U.N. Squadron is a side-scrolling shooter, capable of two-player simultaneous play, in which you take on the persona of one of three pilots in order to destroy the deadly Project 4 fortress. Said fortress was created by some evil organization for the express purpose of making everyone's life miserable, so it's U.N. Squadron to the rescue.

Your trio of heroes each has a different fighter jet to pilot, each with different strengths. The F-14 has the best guns, the A-10 fires forward as well as downward to deal with land based foes, and the F-20 can carry the most special weapons. After selecting your craft, you'll get a brief briefing about the area you're going to be heading to as well as its boss.

Then it's time to do some shopping.

You see, U.N. Squadron not only gives you points for each cretin you blow out of the sky, it also gives you money with which to buy special weapons. These range anywhere from heat-seeking missiles, napalm bombs, and even force fields to protect your plane. What weapons are available to you largely depends on the level you're about to enter and the plane you're flying, but you can always count on having something useful close at hand.

The meat of the game is flying around and blasting stuff to smithereens. During the game, you can power-up your main guns by demolishing red enemies and picking up the power-pods that they leave behind. Again, each of the different fighters has a different power level that they max out on, so there's more variety here yet.

The first level will lull you into a false sense of security: slow moving tanks and easily avoided helicopters, ended with an intimidating, but fairly easy mobile missile launcher. Don't be fooled. The next area features a storm-filled night sky, where enemy gunships will fly out of the cloud banks from above and below as screemingly fast jet fighters will swarm in at you from behind. Make it to the end, and you'll face off with a huge stealth bomber that is immune to your missile's tracking abilities.

It only gets better from there on in, as you fly through forests, canyons, into a goddamn cave, and finally onto the enemy's base. The run-of-the-mill enemies come at you in swarms and the boss fights are some of the best I've ever played through, including hulking bombers, a land based aircraft carrier, and a fortress with multiple gun turrets. The best, by far, is when you face off against the battleship; the music that accompanies this fight is perfection itself and when the ships main guns fire the cabinet's speakers emit an immensely satisfying (and frightening) BOOM that just about drowns out every other sound in the game. The final boss, Project 4, is huge airship that you need to blast a part piece by piece, until you expose its core and you can go for the kill. Yum.

The technical aspects of this game are still fairly good as well, though they do show their age. Sound is crisp, though it consists of really nothing more than explosions and gun fire. The music for every lever is very catchy; you're bound to get at least a tune or two stuck in your head. Graphically, U.N. Squadron is basically a 16-bit game, typical for the time but quite eclipsed by what the arcades have going for them now. Still, there's not much to complain about here.

This is an excellent example of an arcade game. Though hard, U.N. Squadron makes for a memorable and fun experience. If you've only played the SNES cart, do yourself a favor and if you see this machine somewhere, give it a try.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/06