The idea of difficulty in video games has come a long way from the 1980s. Then, it was pretty hard to find a game where you didn't have a shitload of stuff flying at you at absolutely all times, in addition to having relatively weak attacks, limited life (or no life), and a very limited set of lives - the net result being that without either cheating, or a lot of patience and practice, you'd typically never see anything beyond the second level of most games. Later, as the idea of playability was emphasized and the idea of challenge was deemphasized, these tropes have fallen by the wayside. Good luck finding a game that expects you to play the whole thing in one sitting with one set of lives, for example. Hell, good luck finding games that still use lives at all.So what makes Guerrilla War interesting is its surprisingly liberal approach to difficulty (or as surprisingly liberal anything in a game about Che Guevara can be). It is, basically, the same game as either Ikari Warriors or Commando - a straight forward top down shooter where you (the hero) shoot down hordes of enemies. Maybe you'll throw a grenade or something. These games are very hard, and so is Guerrilla War. But whereas those games will kick your ass back to the title screen when you've died enough, Guerrilla War lets you keep going without so much as making you start the level over. Literally the only thing stopping you from slugging your way to the end is whether you get bored halfway (luckily, it's pretty fun - and pretty short).
The idea of unlimited continues was pretty unheard of at that time, which is what makes it so refreshing to come back to this now. We, in these modern times, have little patience for things like lives or punishing difficulty, we want to play a game for as long as it takes for us to get bored of it, then toss it to the side. By removing the impediments to this approach, Guerrilla War feels almost like it was designed with the modern gamer in mind - down to the Cuban Revolution backdrop which is sure to please anyone in search of ironic entertainment.
Now, the game itself? Infinite continues aside, I still prefer Iron Tank in the world of top-down shooters, mostly due to Iron Tank's sense of scale and its boss fights, but when it comes to looking for some quick NES fun (with 2-player co-op, no less)? It's hard to find much to fault here.
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