Description M.I.A. MAME

Released in 1989 by Konami, Missed in Action is a classic platformer/sides-crolling-shooter, where you take tho role of one of the US commandos (green commando for player-one and blue for player-two—hey, it even kind of rhymes, doesn’t it?) whose mission is to rescue prisoners of war from a POW camp in Vietnam War era Vietnam. Being a spiritual sequel to 1985’s game ‘Green Beret’ (or Run’n’Smash), MIA and Green Beret both share a great deal of gameplay similarities. First of all, once again you have your big old trusted badass knife as your main weapon (after all you’re on a stealth mission, right?). Second, again your job is to safe POWs. And third, as in the previous game, even in Missed in Action you can pick up various weapons dropped by certain enemies (guys in red, to be exact), namely grenades, a bazooka, flamethrower and an SMG. But don’t let all those similarities fool ya, there’s also a whole lot of new things MIA has to offer. Most importantly, attacking enemies no longer forces your character to stop moving (yay!). Also, you can pick up multiple weapons at once and switch between them freely by pressing MAME button 3 (note, if you lose a life—three lifes per one coin at default DIP settings—you only lose the weapon that’s currently equipped at the moment of your death; i.e. if you have a bazooka equipped and grenades in your pocket, you only lose the bazooka if you die). But what’s perhaps most striking to the eye (and the ear) are the upgraded visuals (yes, the character animation is kind of quirky, but hey) and sounds. Really, for 1989, Missed in Action offers a very high quality soundtrack and sound effects. Gone are the awful 8-bit sounds and the NES style sprites from 1985! On the other hand, (though I still hold them to be awful) I’ve personally found Green Beret’s old-school graphics actually a little bit more vibrant than those in MIA, but perhaps it’s just the settings of my screen or something, you know? The controls are simple, typical for a platformer: 8-way joystick and three buttons. MAME button 1 for attack with you knife, button 2 for special attack (that’s when you have picked up one of the weapons I’ve mentioned above) and button 3 for switching between the collected weapons. The game itself, however, is incredibly hard. Didn’t turn back in time to stab an incoming enemy? Too bad, you’re dead. Dropped of a ledge next to a bunch of enemies, thinking ‘hey, lets stump them Mario style’? Yeah, exactly, you’re dead. And just when you think the game has no aces left up the sleeve for ya, boom—here come the jumping spec-ops a-holes with SMGs! But all and all, MIA is an incredibly fast-paced and addictive game, with some very unique and inventive level design (hopping onto a plane rolling on the runway for start as to avoid it’s rotor blades? COOL I say!)