Extreme Assault
DOS - 1997
Description of Extreme Assault
Extreme Assault is an addictive 3D action game from Blue Byte, a prolific UK developer responsible for excellent Battle Isle series.
Probably the best-looking action game ever made for DOS, the game boasts superb graphics, nonstop action, and extremely tough levels. Excerpts from this GameSpot's review says it all: "Comparable to Black Dawn for the PlayStation, but far sleeker, Extreme Assault is a one- to four- player air/land combat game that pits you in a one-machine battle - who else - Bad Old Aliens who have established operations on Earth. They've taken your towns and factories, they've kidnapped your people, and they've burrowed a staggeringly vast underground network into your tender green planet. Why, the rotten little SOBs even had the gall to swipe and overhaul one of your own naval destroyers for use against you. Your Sioux AH-23 attack helicopter maneuvers with Jetsons-era ease. And while a joystick of some kind feels especially good here (force-feedback models are also supported), you can do just fine with up, down, forward, backward, left, right, and with the fire key.
Extreme Assault is possibly the single sharpest, cleanest-looking action game to date for the PC, and it's all managed without the need for any graphics accelerator cards (though 3Dfx is supported). Approaching targets ghost smoothly into view through the mist, alien chambers cloaked in darkness roll by in a shadowy shroud of paranoia, and beautiful, transparent holograms give you a hallucinatory taste of things to come. The out-and-out battles in open skies are tense enough, but Extreme Assault really starts to get freaky when you're exploring a dark alien subterranean fortress, skulking around each new corner with no idea whether you're going to find mines or a four-story Anime-style robot.
In towns and factories on the ground, chopper-to-chopper (or whatever) combat takes a pugilistic, bob-and-weave turn as you use the local buildings to your advantage, sideslipping to launch missiles or barrages of cannon-fire. The third-person follow-cam view of your Sioux is pretty all right, but the low-interference virtual-cockpit view is better. And the totally unobstructed vista of the sans-cockpit mode is better still, and safer - there are just too many things out there to risk even a minor blind spot.
Some bad points: First, the existence of the easy mode is kind of a moron joke about game difficulty settings - you can take the easy mode that suits you best, and you can fight at what you may think is the best of your ability through some pretty hairy missions, only to learn that you can only proceed through a limited number of operational areas at an easy level. If you want to see more of Extreme Assault's gorgeous and dangerous world, you'll need to do it at a harder level, and you can bet your entire reproductive system that it's going to be difficult. Even easy mode gets brutal when things start showing up behind you and you've got missiles closing in every three seconds from all sides, but extreme mode is - and I say this in a loving way - completely insane.
The multiplayer value here is both good and bad. It's good in that the easy controls and hovercraft-like physics make for quick, brutal engagements (and not just with the copters - there's a T1 Tank in this game too, which also moves like a hovercraft, allowing side-to-side strafing movement). But it's bad in that you'll probably want more than four players, and you won't be getting them. Oh well. If you work your way (and nerve) up to extreme mode in the one-player game, you shouldn't be getting bored any time soon.
Extreme Assault is a gorgeous, high-tech, lowbrow shooter, and you don't need anything special to play it except fish-eye paranoia, an Eastwood-esque trigger finger, and some form of a death wish."
Highly recommended for all action fans - especially those with better skills than mine (which probably means 99% of you ;))
Review By HOTUD
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Mustafa 2023-06-23 1 point
How do I use mouse aiming? It just doesn't seem to work for me even when I enable it in options.
anonymous 2023-03-29 0 point
UK? Blue Byte Software GmbH is a German studio...and one of the oldest still in operation.
Bernd 2020-08-14 5 points
Haha, borderline insulting. Blue Byte is NOT a UK studio. It's one of the oldest German game studios in existence.
Gamer 2020-01-01 2 points
How do I upload into here for the working Extreme Assault:
Extreme Assault v1.2.2 + 3DFX v1.2.2.ISO
[DOSBox SVN-Daum already in the Extreme Assault Dir]
and
Extreme Assault v1.2.2 + 3DFX v1.2.3.ISO
[DOSBox SVN-Daum already in the Extreme Assault Dir]
No CD needed
larry 2019-01-03 0 point
can anybody tell, what the difference is between rip and iso versions?
is rip version only demo?
KC 2018-05-03 0 point
I can't get the game to load into Boxer. The game file has two zips inside of it, and those make new zips, and they make other zips, it seems to be endless.
MMX 2018-01-04 2 points
Hello, the only problem I found with the game is that there is no voice reading the text in the cinematic, I remember that there was a voice back when I played this game.
The game runs fine in DOSbox 0.74.
1. Run CheckVGA.bat (to configure the video modes)
2. Run start.bat (to start the game)
Enjoy
andy 2017-03-19 0 point
if you cant play the full game it means that on start up it couldn't find the cd, i also get problem myself it really annoys me when this happens, since this is a old 97 game it will be hard to get it running, for some reason dos box will not find the cd, ive downloaded it a few times to see someone has manage to get running, nope 2 time and no go even the version from exodos does the same thing, same with old games, i hope one day gog will pick it up and fix all the problems with the start up cd finding problem, i can get it running with vmware with no problems, this the only way im afraid to get it running
dc 2017-01-29 1 point
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I can't get the single player campaign working in the full version. The "New game" option is just grayed out. I get single player to work in the demo and I get the network play tp work in the full version though.
Anyone knows what might be the problem?
blackmaskoffear 2016-09-28 -3 points
hey I can't install it!! I get the message error 005 "the installation program could not be started"
GadZombiE 2016-03-19 1 point
The screenshots doesn't show this, but remember it wasn't only chopper simulator! In further levels the player is driving a tank!
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DOS Version
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