Hostages (video game)

Hostages[a] is a 1988 tactical shooter video game developed and published by Infogrames for the Acorn Electron, Archimedes, Atari ST, Amiga, Apple IIGS, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, Nintendo Entertainment System, and ZX Spectrum.In the first section, the player controls GIGN snipers Delta, Echo, and Mike (names vary between versions, such as "Mike", "Steve", and "Jumbo" in the NES version) as they attempt to reach designated vantage points in buildings across the street from the embassy to cover the main assault; however, the terrorists have set up searchlights and are scanning the street for movement.If an operative is spotted by a searchlight, the terrorists will shoot at them; the player must roll, dive, or enter cover to avoid getting hit.In the third section, the rappelling operative, armed with a submachine gun, enters the embassy on the selected floor and must search the building for hostages while defeating the terrorists.[5] In a 2020 retrospective, Destructoid favorably deemed it a spiritual predecessor to the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six franchise of tactical shooters—the first installment of which was released a decade after Hostages—praising the game's "unparalleled" and "genuinely innovative" design and commending Infogrames for maintaining the game's visuals, sound design, cutscenes, and level structure across all of its ports.