History Videogame / StrikeCommander

* PsychoSupporter: Janet Page is this to the Wildcats until she leaves the unit. Whereas Stern wants the Wildcats to present an image of trustworthiness and honorable conduct, Page believes that the most important thing is to complete the mission by whatever means necessary. Stern tries to set her straight, but she decides to leave and join the unscrupulous Jackals instead.

* PoisonousFriend: Janet Page is this to the Wildcats until she leaves the unit. Whereas Stern wants the Wildcats to present an image of trustworthiness and honorable conduct, Page believes that the most important thing is to complete the mission by whatever means necessary. Stern tries to set her straight, but she decides to leave and join the unscrupulous Jackals instead.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: Wildcat accountant Virgil Beetlebaum is the only Jewish character in the original game, and he takes the trope UpToEleven - kvetching about every single expense. On his very first appearance, he argues for a badly-damaged F-16 to be repaired and put back into service instead of scrapping it, posing a risk to whoever has to pilot that plane. On the other hand, Virgil is ultimately shown to be both reasonable and honorable; he just worries too much about finances, and The Commander appears not to worry ''enough''.

* JewishComplaining: Played UpToEleven with Virgil Beetlebaum, who complains about ''everything''. Then {{Inverted}} in ''Tactical Operations'' with Ari Bengazi, who complains about ''nothing''.

* CoolPlane: You and your wingmen fly F-16 Fighting Falcons but the game includes enemies who fly F-15 Eagles, RAF Tornadoes, MIG-29 Fulcrums, SU-27 Flankers and many more. [[spoiler: Late in the game you get to fly a prototype version of the F-22 Raptor and the final duel is against your ArchEnemy flying the YF-23 Black Widow II prototype.]]

* WideEyedIdealist: Stern goes beyond TheIdealist into this trope, as illustrated in the first two campaigns. First, he decides to work for the Mauritanians (for legitimately humanitarian reasons) only to get backstabbed by them as soon as the unstable government it toppled by nationalist extremists. Soon afterwards, he takes a job for Generalissimo Mendez, believing that Andes Mallorca is a beleaguered nation and that the General is marked for death because of his desire for peace and cooperation between the South American countries. [[spoiler: Stern is betrayed and killed by Mendez, and we later find out that Mendez is the one instigating conflict with every single one of his neighbouring countries]].

* Turncoat: Virgil feels this way about himself when the Wildcats are forced into attacking Rhode Island - his home state.

* NoKillLikeOverkill: The Barracudas, another mercenary company, refused to pay their taxes to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States. In return, the I.R.S. leveled the base - leaving nothing to be collected at all.
* NonActionGuy: Virgil Beetlebaum, the Wildcats' accountant, is the only Wildcat who isn't a pilot. He's usually find behind a desk in his office. When he accompanies the unit to Rhode Island, everyone realizes this as a sign that [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness things are getting serious]].

* MissingManFormation: At Stern's funeral.
* MockSurpriseReaction: Janet's reaction to hearing about the bombing of the Wildcat home base makes it perfectly clear that [[Foreshadowing she's not innocent in the matter]]. Not long after, Prideaux confesses to bombing the base in service of Trans-World Petrochem.

* EasilyForgiven: Not long after Janet shoots down a plane full of Trans-World Petrochem board members, and [=TWP=] hires [[spoiler:The Jackals]] to bomb their base in retaliation, a representative of [=TWP=] approaches The Commander to offer him work for the company, claiming that the retaliation was sufficient and it's now time to return to business. It's [[SubvertedTrope later revealed]] that [[spoiler:the vendetta isn't over at all, and [=TWP=] were actually hoping to [[UriahGambit get the Wildcats killed]] while doing their dirty business for them]].

** Though the details are not mentioned, an ad in the [[{{Feelies}} accompanying faux-magazine]] indicates that Hawaii has also seceded and is now recruiting an army to defend itself.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Lyle Richards]]' plane just explodes in mid-air during a dogfight, supposedly shot down by enemies. It's completely scripted, so there's absolutely [[PlotlineDeath nothing you can do to prevent this]].

The game was less successful than the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' series, in spite of its technical innovations. Nevertheless, it did produce an ExpansionPack called ''Tactical Operations''. The expansion had a mostly-irrelevant over-arching story about Turkey's attempts to raise its mercenary umbrella tax, but was mostly just a collection of short, ever-more-difficult campaigns with a relatively low StoryToGameplayRatio compared to the original game. The major innovations in the expansion were the inclusion of the F-22 Raptor jet-fighter as an integral part of Wildcat operations (used in pure air-to-air interception missions), and a new pilot (with barely any new dialog) to replace Lyle Richards.

** The game partly deals with Turkey's attempts to raise the mercenary umbrella tax, training mercenaries and terrorists in order to enforce it. However only a few campaign actually involve this storyline, with the main impact being through characters constantly mentioning how the impending threat of the tax is driving mercenaries and fixers out of Istanbul. The Wildcats go to Syria twice to bomb Turkish training bases there, but this only "delays" the introduction of the tax. The plot is never actually resolved.

The game was less successful than the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' series, in spite of its technical innovations. However, it did produce an expansion pack called ''Tactical Operations'', whose plot focuses on attempts by the American IRS (now the de-facto government of what remains of the United States after several states have called quits) to end Turkey's status as a haven for mercenary groups. The major innovation in the expansion was the inclusion of the F-22 Raptor jet-fighter and the F-23 Black Widow II, both of which can be flown instead of the F-16 whenever required.

* IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles: Ari Bengazi (from ''Tactical Operations''), an ex-Israeli Air Force pilot who joins the Wildcats after [[spoiler:Lyle's death]], is the polar opposite of the walking American Jewish stereotype that is Virgil Beetlebaum. He's stone-cold, claims that he doesn't like to "mingle" with others, and is a highly-skilled AcePilot. He also [[JewishComplaining complains about absolutely nothing]], which admittedly might be taking it a step ''too'' far in the opposite direction.