Download SEAL Team

SEAL Team is really unique game or a real piece of junk, depending on the player's taste. When it was published, graphics and sound were average, but the idea of gameplay was something original. Still, it never achieved big commercial success, and never made it to the top.

You control a SEAL team in the Mae Khong Delta during the Vietnam War. You receive missions and assemble 4-member team for every one of them. They can be various, ranging from espionage, observing or following to preparing ambush, rescue missions or simple attack-and-demolish ones. You can choose which Seal you wish to take in a mission depending on his skills. Every soldier has his specialty, statistics and character, but not so personal as in Jagged Alliance. You should also put every one of them in the battle so that they gain valuable experience. Otherwise you'll end up with some hardened veterans and lot of "green" soldiers.

Before every mission there is a briefing that will precisely describe what you have to do. You'll usually have some sort of support to aid you. You play with both mouse and keyboard, but it is not complicated. When you choose your Seals, you'll choose who is the leader (that would be you) and you'll see him form the back. You can also set behavior of other 3 Seals during the combat. They usually just follow you and shoot at the enemy or finish small tasks within the mission. There are also little details that look great, such as the small window that will open when the leader shows other Seals hand signals, weapons and so on.

You probably wonder what is so unique in SEAL Team. Never before, and I dare to say never after this one I saw a game that is so realistic. This is nothing like other 3D Doom-like actions. You'll have to move through the jungle, sneak, observe and sometimes to wait for minutes or almost an hour in the ambush. When shooting comes up, you don't go close to the enemy and avoid his bullets like in other 3D games (realistic isn't it?), instead you lie down and shoot towards enemy. You also don't carry tons of bombs and couple millions of bullets and you're not facing 10000 Charleys with your little shotgun. From the drop point you'll have to move to certain spot, and you shouldn't shoot for fun because they can hear you. Also, enemy will not rush out on you but will open fire from their ambush. Still, your Seals don't die the same second they get hit, but over time, like in real life.

Like I said, you'll master the commands quickly with little experimenting. This game would probably be better with better graphics of jungle. At that time, 3D surrounding left for gameplay was enough. If quality of sound is not better then average, then the sound itself is very good. Get near the enemy and hear for yourself.

If you played some 3D shoot-ups and thought how it feels great to rush into the battle, then imagine how it feels to really step into the jungle where one bullet can introduce you to your maker. Feeling that this game can produce, while you slowly progress on your mission, makes this one unique. You cannot compare it with any (and I do mean any) other game. If you are a trigger-maniac, you won't be interested, but if you love realistic simulation, this is something you always wanted to find. Since the game is not popular, it seems that there are much more "trigger-gamers". Therefore, I doubt that this concept of gameplay will be used again, so SEAL Team is surely one and only.

Now the real bad part: game runs very slow in Dosbox. I was unable to start it in XP, so, unless you have old comp or a Win98 near you, you'll need to handle Dosbox much better than I did. The best solution would be to use VDMsound.