![]() Later stages see the addition of bridges and strange rock formations. By this time the enemy has wised up to your antics and launched an air attack to keep you busy. Stage two takes place in a canyon and then on through a brushwood forest towards a desert where you meet a moving munitions dump. The end of the first stage is marked by a gigantic aircraft carrier that literally bristles with death. This helps you avoid enemy fire by flying over the tops of some buildings. In the second wave the view is from behind the chopper. Get caught in the explosion and it is curtains.ĭodging missiles seems to be the only escape, but stray too far toward the edge of the screen and you crash into the skyscrapers. As for the bad guys, they do not give you much of a chance - even in the early stages the homing missiles explode like hotels in Beirut. Holding the fire button down soon becomes second nature, as this is the only way to keep up the devilish rate of fire required to dispatch the enemy. ![]() This feels a little odd at first but you soon get used to it. To move forward you hold the fire button down and push the stick forward. Pulling back on the joystick makes the chopper rise, pushing forward descends. You and Thunder Blade are the only things standing in their way. The scene is set in a war torn city which tanks and artillery have infiltrated. The second wave puts you directly behind the chopper in glorious 3D, and the third reverts to overhead perspective. ![]() But do not get the idea this is another boring vertical scroller - it most certainly is not. The first scene of each wave is viewed from above the helicopter. It is astounding.Īs per the original, the game is split into four stages of three waves each, the finale of each being the dreadnought - an emplacement of such vast capacity it seems to go on for miles. This is precisely what the team at Tiertex has done. How do you simulate an arcade game which uses custom-designed sprite hardware and stereo sound on a meagre home computer? Simple, you find a machine capable of such mindboggling feats, an Amiga for instance, and program it in machine code. Whichever you play, the seat-of-the-pants feeling you get is remarkable, with or without the hydraulic rams supplied on some versions. In fact the two games are similar in many respects, both using very expensive hardware to produce multi-coloured sprites which give the impression of explosions jumping out of the screen at you. The object of the game is simple - shoot everything in sight. FOLLOWING the hugely successful Afterburner, Sega produced their own version of helicopter mayhem - Thunder blade.
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