Oliver Stone's acclaimed 1986 Vietnam war movie, Platoon, chronicles the piteous plight of a naive US army volunteer played by Charlie Sheen. It contemplates his evolving attitudes towards the nature of war, humanity and patriotism as, ostensibly, he deals with the immediacy of life and death skirmishes, enveloped by the cloying humidity of an oppressive jungle prison. Its lasting legacy for Private Chris Taylor is the dawning realisation that America's most salient threat is not the Viet Cong, but the battles that rage within and amongst allied ranks.
A year later when Ocean Software translated Stone's harrowing assault on the heart and soul to the medium of home computer gaming, they settled for slightly less lofty ideals. It's a 2D, scrolling or flip-screen, arcade-action shooter that eschews melancholy sentiment in favour of rapid-reflex carnage. We intermittently take charge of a squad of five soldiers, guiding them through various multi-genre scenarios replicated from the movie, culminating in a grenade-launching stand-off again Sergeant Barnes.
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