Like its predecessors, the game features shooting action mixed with strategic management of fuel and ammunition, but has more authentic 3D graphics, as well as a modified overhead - as opposed to isometric - perspective.

Soviet Strike employs a relatively realistic, fluid virtual battlefield and sophisticated artificial intelligence, which will put in motion set pieces even if the protagonist has not arrived to take part.

[8] Some missions require set piece solutions, including starting an avalanche to crush a tank battalion and sealing a nuclear reactor core in a salt mine.

[9] The player is a helicopter pilot in STRIKE, a special covert operations force of the US military designed for preemptive action to prevent "wars that never happen."

Major STRIKE personnel include electronics expert Hack and agent Andrea Grey, whose cover job is a news reporter.

The game's antagonists are former KGB Chairman Uri "Shadowman" Vatsiznov, Ireki dictator Sadissa Savak, and disgraced Soviet scientist Dr Grymyenko Ukrainian.

In the tape, Clinton is unaware that STRIKE prevented a civil war in Mexico in 1982 which could have turned the country into a secret Warsaw Pact member-state.

STRIKE's victory in the Black Sea leads them to the Caucasus, where Sadissa Savak, leader of the fictional state of Irek, begins aggressive overtures against local fighters.

With STRIKE killing Savak (and passed off as the victim of a car crash), the group goes to a heavily irradiated Transylvania to rescue Nick once more, this time from Dr Grymyenko Ukrainian, who wields an arsenal of ballistic missiles.

The final mission takes place in Moscow, with the Shadowman unleashing his minions in the KGB, the military and the Russian mafia in attempting a coup against President Boris Yeltsin's government.

The game's end sequence depicts Andrea delivering a televised news report blaming the destruction on an earthquake and consequent gas fires.

[10] Strike series creator Mike Posehn assisted in early programming and the design but otherwise did not wish to work as part of a large team, necessitated by the move to a more advanced console.

The development team, who had already spent several months working on the 3DO version, decided to rework it instead as a PlayStation game when it was clear that the 3DO's demise was inevitable; an additional two years' labor time was the result.

[12] In order to ensure proper spatial relations and unit placement, the team built three dimensional reliefs of each mission on sheets of plywood.

[11] The later Saturn version featured a number of changes: an optional easy difficulty setting (providing the player with twice the fire-power and slower fuel consumption), adjustable brightness on the heads-up display; two hidden powerful weapons; hundreds of bug fixes from the PlayStation version; extra sound effects added to helicopters; improvements to the graphics of control and menu screens and compass; and more improvised fuel added to level 4.

[17][19][6][8][21][22][16][23] Next Generation said that "the game makes a giant leap forward in terms of the environment" but called the explosions "average",[19] while other reviewers found them impressive.

[8][19] GamePro compared the FMV to Desert Storm if reported by MTV, saying its "hip new attitude" was "part of the charm",[21] while Sega Saturn Magazine said the sequences "spice up the proceedings a fair bit".

The magazine also felt that while the collecting of supplies added strategy to the action, the limited amount restricted the paths the player might take through the level.

[22] Edge summarised: "this is a fairly well-engineered continuation of the four-year-old Strike series", which retains the gameplay of the original but updates the graphics to true 3D.