(Elite Systems, 1985)
For a good five minutes back in the mid-'80s every kid wanted to be Peter Stringfellow. He got to fly a well spiffy helicopter called KITT and used it to zap bad dudes in order to clear his name, after being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. And he played his huge violin moodily on the beach...a lot. Thanks to Wikipedia for this information as I never watched it myself.
The above paragraph caused equal amusement and confusion when I first put it on Facebook a couple of years ago, but at least it serves quite well as an indication of whether the rest of the site is for you or not...
So obviously, it being a TV show and all, software companies fancied making a game of it. Ocean advertised it heavily but rather embarrassingly failed to get the licence finalised, so Elite swooped in, perhaps by helicopter, and snapped it up. This was probably a good thing, as Ocean at the time couldn't even convert primary school French into English to save their lives. Witness Knight Rider, Street Hawks (both of 'em) and Miami Vice. So we can thank Elite for saving us there.
However, what resulted was surely the Spectrum's most Marmitey game ever. Crash loved it (90% Crash Smash), maybe a little too much. Sinclair User hated it (3/10) because there wasn't a ZX81 version. Sinclair Programs really hated it (a gobsmacking 10%) because it didn't involve a flickering black square jerking slowly up the screen, then producing an error message, with an apology to come next issue.
Your Spectrum/Sinclair/Whatever probably came closest to hitting the nail on the head, but it's hard to tell due to their then hopeless ratings system. They gave it Hit Hit Miss. Kind of sums it up in a very vague way, only marginally more informative than "This game is alright I suppose".
Right then. Having dismissed everyone else's opinions, I guess I'd better play the game. Okay. Hang on, better make myself a nice coffee first...and maybe pop to the loo...erm, now I'll perhaps just sort out my pension...oh alright, I'll play it now. Jeez, what's your hurry?!
Just to warn you, I'll be playing Airwolf using "massively cheaty mode", namely save scumming my progress using my Speccy emulator on every screen. Sometimes more than once per screen. This is for the sake of my mental health and to prevent my death from cutting this review short.
The idea is you have to rescue some hapless boffins/brainiacs/nerdlingers from a meany's underground hi-tech base, using your well impressive chopper. Well, it's got a gun at least. So here goes...
Screen 1 is a gimme, even I can do that. So screen 2 should be slightly harder then. Ah, a wall. Just shoot through it I guess. Hang on, it's just refreshed itself somehow and filled in all the holes I shot in it, that's weird. Shoot it again then. Hmmm, refreshed itself again. Okay, SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT OH FOR ****'S SAKE, HOW IN THE MOTHER******* NAME OF CHRIST ARE YOU MEANT TO DO THIS, IT'S ****ING IMPOSSIBLE. Oh wait, I've managed it somehow after 20 or so tries. Is that the whole game, surely I've suffered enough already?
(Lack of) progress continues in a similar vein throughout the game. This game really does hate you, and you've got to love it a little for that. After all, nowadays we're supposed to love cruel and unforgiving games, calling them "Souls" types, as if that excuses everything. In the '80s we just called such games tw**s.
Using my admittedly cheaty tactics, I eventually came across a blue scientist (rude). "Now we're getting somewhere" I naively muttered to myself. Just take him out the way I came in, easy does it all the way. Wait, I just blew up for no apparent reason. Hold the phone, it happened again. WTAF? Oh, my time limit ran out. And it just keeps running out with every life lost. So I went on a very macho gung-ho mad dash one time and thought I'd managed to get all the way back out. But somehow I forgot the revenge of the motherloving b***ard wall on screen 2, which I now had to traverse in the opposite direction. I did the only decent thing I could and crashed my beautiful Airwolf against the wall deliberately in frustration, instantly killing poor Peter and his boffin buddy. The bad guys had won again. I rage-quitted like the petulant child I am.
Sooo...plus points then? The game looks great, excellent graphics and the 'copter controls work really well. Trouble is, so narrow are the margins of error on practically all screens, you're constantly using minute tweaks of the controls to squeeze into tiny gaps, never really getting to give the hi-tech whirlybird its head, say for a nice flight over Switzerland or something.
Given it's a rather old game, I think Elite did quite a good job on this one, it's so much better than most licence tie-ins of the time. It may be that they ramped up the difficulty deliberately as there are only 12 or so screens in the game, and it would be too easy to complete otherwise. But it's just possible they might have taken it a tiny tad too far in the end.
THE VERDICT
You've got to play this game purely for the experience it provides, which is certainly...emotional. And if you can actually get anywhere in it at all, I doff my pilot's cap and aviators to you!
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING 75%
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