Urban Strike

About Urban Strike

Urban Strike (1994) is the third Strike helicopter game, taking the fight across North America against a media mogul building a superweapon, and adding on-foot missions.

Urban Strike in Depth

In 2001, H. R. Malone, a charismatic millionaire media mogul and failed presidential candidate, plans a superweapon to destabilise the US government. Strike C.O.R.E. spy Agent Ego, a former co-pilot from Jungle Strike, reports that components are being gathered in Hawaii, but Malone uncovers him and kills him with a car bomb. In Hawaii the player stops a theft of giant mirrors and saves a plastic surgeon who reveals that the man he once operated on, now Malone, was really Carlos Ortega, presumed killed in Jungle Strike. After missions in Mexico and San Francisco, Malone fires the weapon at New York, and its later shots lead Strike C.O.R.E. to a facility near Las Vegas, where Malone dies on his own weapon.

It keeps the series' helicopter mix of action and strategy while adding vehicles and settings across Hawaii, Mexico, San Francisco, New York and Las Vegas. The main helicopter is the fast, combat-ready Mohican; the heavier Blackhawke, built for large rescues, can be flown in the first two levels, and an experimental Ground Assault Vehicle can be stolen in the third. New on-foot missions take the player out of the helicopter and inside buildings with a rifle and missile launcher. Levels are made of missions to destroy weapons and installations and rescue hostages. GamePro called it "a top-notch helicopter-combat cart".

Making Urban Strike

Electronic Arts developed and published it for the Genesis in 1994 as the third Strike game, after Desert Strike and Jungle Strike, followed by Black Pearl Software's ports in 1995 and 1996. GamePro praised its ten massive missions, mix of air and ground combat, new helicopter moves and techno soundtrack. Next Generation gave both the Genesis and SNES versions three stars, finding the SNES version more colourful but with less smooth controls and animation, and felt the formula was growing stale while still delivering for those wanting more of the same. Russia's Great Drakon found it too easy, the weakest of the series.