Suburban Commando Download (1993 Arcade action Game)

Suburban Commando is a mix of space shooter, jump-and-run and beat-em-up.

If you're a US American, the mention of the name Hulk Hogan will most likely make some tears sparkle in your eyes, while your reminisce about the good old days when the Hulkster single-handedly beat up all those jerks in the WWF. If you know Hogan only from his movies, you'll have a different reason for crying. One of the films featuring Hulk was called Suburban Commando (1991). Alternative Software turned it into a game two years later, and decided to create a wild mix of space shooter, platform jumping and - of course - beat-em-up action.

Loosely following the storyline of the film, Hogan alias intergalactic hero Shep Ramsey travels through space, crash-lands on earth and beats up the bad guys. The first level is a R-Type-like horizontal space shooter; destroy formations of drones and collect weapon upgrades. After that, you'll enter three platform levels, in which you have to find nine items each. Avoid being shot and dispatch the enemies with kicks and jumps. After each mission, you'll encounter the level boss, who you're supposed to beat up in a Street Fighter clone.

Apart from a comic-style likeness of Hulk Hogan as the main hero (with a huge head and tiny body -- strange), the game has little reference to the movie. No other main characters appear. Fans of the film will especially mourn the complete absence of any mimics. If you're curious for more information about the movie, check the trivia and links sections.

Do you remember the movie Suburban Commando with Christopher Lloyd? You know, the professor from Back to the Future movies, the judge in Who Framed Roger Rabitt, the Klingon commander in Star Trek movies II and III... Anyway, if you don't you might have missed out on 90 minutes of fun, but the guy the movie was famous for was Hulk Hogan.

The game before you seems to focus only on his character. An interplanetary commando, who lands on Earth and needs to get back to space, but has to stop the villain from trying to take over the galaxy. The game only shows remote signs of similarity with the movie, but can still offer some fun.

You start off in space, where you need to blast everything that comes your way or shoots at you. Naturally you can pick up power ups and these really make all the difference. After picking some of them up, you virtually become invincible, which does make it slightly boring.

But after this first space-shooter level the game becomes a classical side-scrolling game. You're walking around searching for keys trying to finish the level. You need to plant bombs on the space ship and you need to get to certain places once on Earth. There are off course many baddies who wish to stop you and every level (except the first one) has a boss at the end that you need to fight in a one on one brawl.

On the way you can still collect goodies and you have to explore your surroundings to find your way out of it. That's about it.

The graphics are actually nice and colorful, with smooth animation. The sound gets very repetitive and the effects aren't much. The game has level passwords, so you needn't start from the beginning every time. The controls are Q - up, A - down, O - left, P - right and SPACE - fire. You can also do certain moves while fighting (like a flying kick) if you combine the keys.

All in all this game is somewhat entertaining action game, but very average. It would not stand out off the crowd, that's why I'm only giving it an average rating of 3.

Suburban Commando is a multi-style action game based on the movie of the same name. Features a fairly poor R-Type clone level, three standard jump'n run levels and three beat'em up levels. Well, quite a nice combination but not that entertaining as it sounds. At least technically it's ok - but lacking a lot in gameplay. Awful movie, awful game. Stay away from this one if you can help it.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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