Guerrilla War (video game)
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Guerrilla War (Guevara in Japan) is an arcade game by SNK. It is an overhead shooter.
Originally released for arcades in 1987, Guerrilla War followed the adventures of two unnamed rebel commandos as they raid an unnamed Caribbean Island in order to free it from the rule of a tyrannical dictator. Along the way the players vanquish hordes of enemy soldiers while attempting to rescue hostages (with large score deductions for any hostages killed in the crossfire).
The game holds the distinction of being the only commercially released game based on the exploits of a Marxist revolutionary (see section below).
Editions
The arcade edition, released by SNK in 1987, followed the highly successful format for overhead arcade shooters that SNK had pioneered with its landmark Ikari Warriors (1986). Using eight-way rotating joysticks, the game allowed players to move their character in one direction while rotating the joystick in order to shoot in another. The game was moderately successful, and spawned ports onto home video game systems. In 1988, SNK released home editions on the Commodore 64 home computer and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)/Famicom 8-bit console. Because of the limits of the home console, the home editions did not have the rotating joysticks. However, the NES/Famicom editions proved to be very well adapted to the system and more popular than the arcade edition. The NES version's two-player simultaneous play, unlimited continues, and frantic action gave it an edge over its arcade predecessor.
The Ernesto "Che" Guevara Connection
The game is based on the exploits of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the defeat of the Batista regime in Cuba in the late 1950s. The original Japanese title of Guerrilla War was Guevara. However, fearing extreme anti-Communist sentiments in the West, SNK did a localisation of the game's dialogue and instruction manual for its US and European releases. The edition of Guevara released for the Japanese Famicom is a sought-after item for video game collectors.