Based on the Charlie Sheen-starring action flick of the late 80s, the game involves you kicking terrorist ass in trying to recover some missiles and save kidnapped comrades. Unlike the movie, however, this game is rather fun. Five stages of Rolling Thunder-esque run and gun with a small element of exploration.
You start with a pistol that takes two shots to kill any one evil Arab terrorist(tm), but can occasionally pick up a machine gun, which fires two shots in succession when you press the button once. At least the gun icon changes in the status block at the bottom. Another helpful addition is the sniper option - essentially a smart bomb - pressing Select shows an animation of one of your comrades firing a sniper rifle, and every evil Arab terrorist(tm) on the screen is sent to their wine and twenty virgins.
There's never too much trouble in working out which way to go to finish the level, but there are occasionally hidden goodies - extra lives, additional sniper shots and score bonuses - which merit exploration. Also, one has to be wary of traps in each area - pieces of falling roof or collapsing floor panels, for example. Occasionally, you can get rushed by a number of evil Arab terrorists(tm), a chance to get your twitch reflexes on or be frustrated; it's up to you, really.
From the title screen, it's possible to practice the second, third or fourth levels as well as starting a standard game - this is helpful, as it allows you to acclimatize yourself to each level before attempting to finish the entire game in one go. Each level in and of itself isn't too large, perhaps five to ten minutes play to get through.
The graphics are a step above functional - nice images for the beginning and end of each level to progress the story, what there is of it; decent enough animation on the characters in the game, and nothing moves so fast as to get blurry or indistinct, always a bonus. The sound is very good - nice tunes, functional sound effects. Not too surprising, I suppose, but Game Boy music always gives me fond memories of C=64 era music, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm easily pleased.
If you liked Rolling Thunder, but wanted a taste of extra exploration added, then Navy Seals is your game. Just don't watch the movie it's based on, unless you like entering worlds of pain. Also, if you're an evil Arab terrorist(tm), you should probably move on, maybe to Bomberman? I keed, I keed.
