Sgt. Rock: On The Frontline

Sgt. Rock:  On The Frontline is a 2-D top-down shooter developed by Altron Corp  and published by Tatio.  In the game, you play as the DC comic hero Sgt. Rock, a hardened war veteran who is sent on missions against an unspecified enemy.  Controls are easy to remember; you can move in eight directions, and one button fires while the other throws grenades.  It is worth noting that weapons and grenades in this game have unlimited ammo.

The game consists of 4 areas with 2 stages per area.  Each area starts with a little dialogue explaining what your mission is.  After completing the second stage of each area, you receive another dialogue scene.  While going through each level, you mostly fight the same three enemies, all of which are soldiers that either shoot at you or throw grenades.  On some occasions, you fight against enemy vehicles, turrets, and in one section of the game, snakes and alligators.

Sgt. Rock can only take one hit before he dies.  Losing all of your lives ends the stage.  Also, each stage has a ten-minute timer that will cost you a life if the timer runs out.  Some stages let you take vehicles which can make getting to the end of the stage much faster.  Besides the last stage, I always cleared every stage with plenty of time.  If you do lose all your lives, you can continue at the start of the stage of whichever area you were in.

The game has some power-ups to help you along.  For weapons, you have your regular single-shot gun, and there is also a machine gun and a rocket launcher.  Besides your starting grenade, you can also find dynamite that has a larger blast radius.  When it comes to weapons and bombs, you can only hold one of each type at a time.  There are also power-ups for increased speed, invulnerability, increased time, and point bonuses.

I liked the graphics in the game.  While the game uses simple colors and graphics, I found the details of the level to be good for a Gameboy Color game.  The audio in the game is passable, but nothing great.  I started to like the music after a while though.

The game has two main problems.  One is that once you beat the game, there is no reason to replay it.  Also, the game is pretty repetitive.  That's not to say that the game is bad, but each level plays out the same.  Even the boss battles mostly play out the same on each stage.

If you ever played games like Jackal, Commando or Guerrilla War, you will probably like this game.  If you don't like these types of games, then this game is unlikely to change your opinion on them.  However, if you are on the fence, this is a game that plays well but does not have a lot of depth or content.