THE A-TEAM (EL EQUIPO A)

ZAfiro SOFTWARE DIVISION - 1989

The A-Team needs no introduction as it was one of the most successful television shows of the 1980s. It followed the crime-fighting exploits of four ex Vietnam veterans, John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, Templeton ‘Face-man’ Peck, ‘Howling Mad’ Murdoch & Bosco ‘BA’ Baracus who were wanted for a crime they didn’t commit. In the UK alone, millions of us tuned in each week and watched with excitement as they conned, punched, gunned, and smashed their way to victory over the bad guys.

With its formulaic plot, colourful characters and fights full of gunfire and explosions where no one ever died, the A-Team was a sure-fire hit with kids the world over — ideal, you would think, for a video game tie-in.

Sadly however this wasn’t to be and with an abandoned Atari 2600 prototype and an appalling Commodore 64 game that’s not worth mentioning, there was only ever one semi-okay A-Team game released. The title was ‘El Equipo A’, an Operation Wolf clone released in 1988 in Spain by Zafiro Software and the only game to make sensible use of the license. Featuring two missions, you shoot at anything that moves, apart from the hostages and BA who runs across the screen at times, to remind you that this is a game based on the A-Team. A light gun option is available if you have one, but sadly not even this adds much to what is a disappointing game that you’ll finish pretty quickly given that the total gameplay time is less than ten minutes. I Pity the Fool that plays this game and the fact that not anywhere do you get to hear the iconic theme tune.

Images below are from the MSX and Spectrum versions of the game respectively.