Video Game Collecting

I love helicopter videogames.  Ever since the first time I played SEGA’s version of Choplifter in the arcade I have been hooked.  But I’m obviously not the only one who likes them because helicopter shooters have been a recurring theme for a very long time.  Nintendo has at least six helicopter games I can think of: Tiger Heli, Twin Cobra, Twin Eagle, Cobra Command, Raid on Bungling Bay and Silk Worm (a helicopter is one of the selectable vehicles.)  Heli, Twin Cobra, and Eagle are all vertical shooters, where as Raid has an 8 directional top-down view, and Cobra Command and Silk Worm are deployed as a side view ala Choplifter.  There is also Airwolf, but its more of a simulator than anything else.  Is Infiltrator a helicopter game as well?  I’m not sure.  The point is there are a bunch of Helicopter games.

For the purposes of this post we’re going to concentrate on Tiger Heli, Twin Cobra, and Twin Eagle.

Tiger Heli (1987) is the oldest of the three.  It also has the simplest graphics of the three, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that Tiger Heli looks like a child’s playset.  The graphics are very simple with some shading effects.  You can blow up parked cars and houses!  You have a simple gun and you can pick up bombs.  It’s a pretty standard shooter.  The helicopter in Tiger Heli looks the best out of the three.

Next we have Twin Cobra (1990).  I loved the arcade game to Twin Cobra because it was basically Sky Shark but with helicopters.  There is this convoluted power up system where you can change the weapon based on the power-up that is dropped by the Chinook helicopters.  The soundtrack is one of the best ever, period.

And finally we have Twin Eagle, which to me is the most disappointing of the three.  The game is a remake of the arcade game which had faux-digitized graphics of the landscape.  This is cool and all, but it doesn’t translate well for the Nintendo NES.  All of the enemies look washed out and out of place.  The water, although texture, doesn’t ‘feel’ much like water.  It just feels like a bunch of blah on the screen.  The same holds true for your helicopter.  It’s the same color as the enemies and offers no variety what-so-ever.  If there is anything redeeming about Twin Eagle it’s the aircraft carrier that has planes taking off that you can destroy as they taxi down the launch pad.  It’s kinda a neat effect, but nothing too spectacular or even memorable.

Well the boxart for all three of these games are a very different story!  Tiger-Heli has an awesome rear shot of a helicopter blowing the crap out of something.  It’s a nice land, ocean, and sunset view.

Twin Cobra has a more comic book feel to it’s cover.  It’s still nice, just a little dull perhaps.

And Twin Eagle is as generic as it comes.  Even the ship in the background is boring.

So anyways here are the first three helicopter games in the Nintendo NES Helicopter Anthology, come back soon for part 2.