Posted on February 24th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
This is one of my favorite games for my favorite system. First, take it from the point of view of an arcade-style helicopter shooter, and NOT from the point of view of a 3D desert strike or a “simulation” of any kind. These may predisposition your experience.
As soon as the mission loads, just lay down on the machine guns and head north, straffing left and right as you go to “mow down a path of trees”. This is hella-fun. Just the fact that you can lay down the gunfire and everything you see blows up under your fire is amusing and stress relieving beyond belief.
Then once some big targets show up, use those rockets, and watch as they alternate left-right-left-right from your sides as you pummel the tanks and towers with rockets.
When one of those pesky helicopters or airplanes shows up, raise your altitude, target, and fire off a missle to get rid of them.
As an arcade shooter, this game is utterly amazing. Even if the flat-ground and scaling sprites are antiquated by 3D graphics standards, the smooth flying motion animation and smooth scaling prevent the graphics from being a hindrance.
True, sometimes when you’re trying to pinpoint that last target, backing up into trees can get annoying. But that’s why I strafe a swath through the trees with gunfire. It’s both extremely fun, and serves a purpose!
This is one of the only games ever made where you can just jump into a 1st person view and fly around blowing up everything in sight and just have fun for a few minutes, 15 minutes, or an hour if you want. And the mission progress is saved to RAM, so you can load where you left off to finish the whole game over a longer timeframe.
There’s also a lot of variety to the stages. Some are in thick forests, while others are over rivers or islands in oceans, and desert canyons.
Lastly, this game has some depth to it. On many of the missions, there are special tasks you can perform that earn you extra medals. Like when you rescue the guy from the downed stealth bomber, or save a convoy.
The Sega CD is my favorite system of all time, because my three favorite games are on it:
1.) The best arcade driving combat game ever: Batman Returns CD
2.) The best arcade flying combat game ever: AH-3 Thunderstrike
3.) The best 2D fighting game ever: Eternal Champions CD
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