Return Fire

Overview

Released in 1995 for the 3DO, Return Fire was a spiritual sequel to Silent Software's 1988 title Fire Power. It was a capture the flag game played with four types of vehicles: tanks, armored support vehicles, helicopters and jeeps. Each side had their own base, which was defended by walls, turrets and soldiers. A player would have to invade the enemy base and find the building holding the flag, destroy it, and return with the jeep to pick up the flag and return it to their base without dying.

Each vehicle was used for different purposes. The armored support vehicles were slow but heavily armored and could shoot rockets which did a great amount of damage. Tanks were faster and more agile than ASV's but were less powerful. Helicopters were powerful but had to return to their starting points to refuel or restock on ammo, and could be shot down quickly. Jeeps would be destroyed in one or two hits and were only used for picking up the flag. Jeeps could inflate their tires however, and evade tanks and ASV's over water. The game was one of the more popular games on the 3DO, and was highly associated with the system, along with Out of This World, Gex, Masters of Orion 2 and Fifa Soccer.

Music

The game soundtrack consisted of a number of famous classical pieces. The title screen used Verdi's ' Dies Irae' and is a dramatic orchestral and choral track from his Requiem. 'Ride of the Valyries' by Wagner (as used in the helicopter attack in the movie Apocalypse Now) kicks in when the player takes control of the helicopter. 'Flight of the Bumblebee' by Rimsky-Korsakov stars when driving the jeep and then changes to the 'William Tell Overture' by Rossini when driving with the captured flag, 'Mars' from The Planets by Holst is used when driving the tank . Finally, the Armored Support Vehicle uses Greig's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' as it's musical accompaniment.

Trivia

The game was featured in the Pauly Shore film In the Army Now.

An add-on pack titled Maps o' Death was released for the 3DO version, that consisted of 100 additional maps for the game.

A port of Return Fire was completed for the Sega Saturn, but was not released, even though the game had gone "gold".