Game Publisher: HES Sublicensed from A.V.E. [This game is the same one that is on the AVE published title.]

Year: 1990

Type of game: Arcade Corridor Shooter

Players: 1

Story:

It's a war out there and it's happening in your own backyard. Now it's up to you to defend our city. You and your all-out fighting machine an F-15 with supersonic speed and an unlimited supply of ammo. You've only got two choices. Protect it. Or die!

YOU'RE PUMPED

The adrenaline is rushing. Things are getting out of control. Choppers. Jets. Gun boats. Tanks. Giant robots. And they're coming at you non-stop through five hair-raising stages.

* Blast 'em with machine gun and missiles.
* Ambush tanks that prowl the city streets.
* Decimate gunboats and choppers from high above the deep blue.
* Maneuver through the trenches while dodging tanks and hostile robots.
* Blow up missile silos during your ocean assault
* Blast tanks and jets as you struggle to control the deep,, dark cave.
* Wipe out the enemy's command vessel at the end of each and every stage!

Now turn on the power and prove that you're a hero.

My take on the story:

Pretty hyped up, isn't it? Well let's just say that although all the above does fit the game, you'd be surprised how accurate yet off Communist propaganda is too.

Story ripped from: NO WHERE Yes that is right, for once I didn't rip off anything from anyone's manuals section. However, it is a interesting read to compare this Australian book text to the American text on the book that is on NESWorld, which is on NES El33t's link page. It surprisingly differs greatly.

The game begins with a very well programmed F-15 at the beginning, then some somewhat cheesy music starts to play,[cheesy, not bad].

The weapons you get in the game consist of a regular cannon and missiles, both unlimited, in the game one shot kills the other aircraft but the same goes for you.

After you start you get Five aircraft,[a.k.a., Five tries before a continue], and start off in a city were you got to shoot up everything in sight, tanks, helicopters, other aircraft, the bull the breeze, well there's not much too it but it's a good way to waste a few minutes. For some reason you'll find missiles are fairly useless, you can only shoot one at a time and they kill in as many hits as one shot from your main gun, best to stick with the cannon and only use the missiles when a large group of enemies are on the screen. At the end of the first stage you go to fight what appears to be a Battleship, it looks like it was well programmed, but it doesn't look very battleship-like.

The whole part of the first stage, from beginning to the battleship wannabe is fairly easy, just don't stay in one place very long and you'll rarely get hit, a slightly different but almost the same strategy has to be used for stage Two though.

To add variety to the game, the second stage is done by a overhead view with the aircraft being less responsive and much much slower. The missiles which had seemingly little use in the first stage prove very useful in killing gun boats that shot about every three seconds when they come on the screen, they are actually the only thing that kills the gunboats, no wonder why the missiles were ineffective in the first stage, they loaded you up with Anti-ship missiles, the jerks.

After playing halfway through the second game, destroying a obscene number of helicopters and frying those pesky small boats and larger boats that have multiple turrets, it goes to another corridor mission, this time the ground enemies move and shoot much faster, their appears to be bridges between the building made just to destroy the plane, and you start going against....get this, aircraft that look like Star Wars TIE fighters. No joke. after fending off some unknown army in the first mission, it appears that you are fighting the Empire yourself, where's Luke Skywalker when you need him? Well the second stage is much like the first, only difference is it is darkened to simulate darkness and the pillars, and a few of the bad guys, one occasionally runs up and down the city blasting at you with some odd blaster, this is about the only difference in pattern between the first stage and this one. ...That and the hardness, even though you are outmatched by the TIE Fighter things, be glad when you shoot one or two down, you are flying something that is outgunned by lasers, speed, and number, it's a wonder that any can be shot down.

And oddly enough, at the end of the second stage you fight against a tank that is about 300 times the size of a regular tank, oh what unique enemies these programmers can think up.

The Next stage is actually a copy of the second,[surprise surprise]. Only instead of the small boats they have what appears to be missile silos that scroll down from the top screen and almost immediately launch, after about a almost complete repeat of the second stage, you go back to the corridor view. But no city this time, it is what I think was supposed to be a field, but what it is is two different color stripes coming toward you in a pattern that tries to make you feel like you are going somewhere. After a ways in this part of the stage the screen flashes for a second and then the color of the stripes change and you are now dodging Horizontal pillars in what is supposed to be a cave. [Oh what fun!]

Well from what you now know, they just change a little here and there to add to the gaming element, all companies do this but they should have spent a little more time on this game to make it of better quality.

Play Control: C

The plane handles rather un-uniformly at times. It has some good control in the corridor stages, but it is really slowed down during the overhead stages. And for some reason at times when you are trying to dodge a volley of fire in the later stages the plane just flat out seems to not respond on occasion. It is like the game was not well coded at certain areas, although it usually only last a second it can really mess up a game.

Graphics: C+

Graphic are not the best, they are pretty far from it. I can say the plane you play is fairly detailed, the plane's paint job actually looks like a copy of the United States Air Force Thunderbird groups . Some of the enemy machines have a good design and look too, but some seem like they were rushed. Helicopters coming from a long ways off on the corridor mode seem to be nothing more than green balls, same can be said for a lot of the vehicles and the game overall, They do get the job done though.

Sound: D+

Sound is limited to some small explosions, machine gun and missile fire....and that's it.

Music: F

The same three second beat is repeated over and over. And you can't shut it off.

Theme and Fun: C-

I have to admit, it does put a spin on the regular plane fighter of the day, but not enough to be a major improvement. It just lacks in to many areas to be a excellent game. If they spent a little more time on it, it would have came out pretty good.

Frustration: B+

In some of the corridor stages they throw a lot at you. In a few areas it is overwhelming. But nothing that directly ruins the game.

Repetition: B

The change the corridor and overheard layout enough to make it somewhat lower than usual. But it is still on this game like any other.

Challenge:A

This game has some stages that are rather hard to beat, the corridor cave stage with the pillars seems near unpassible to me. Then again I've only played it for six days.

Replay Value: C+

It will be one of them games you play occasionally, it will last you a long while to beat, but I bet you'll be nearly done with it after you do.

Final Pluses:

Good format for playing, with the corridor and overhead stages. Much better than expected for even a unlicensed game. [Check out F-117 A Stealth Fighter and Stealth ATF if you want to see what I mean]. The did try a few new things with a old way of playing.

Final Minuses:

The seemingly short sounding "Five Stages" are rather large and will take a while to finish. Difficulty seems to increase at a drastic rate in the later stages. [Something that seems normal for the NES, not necessarily a negative.] A two player simultaneous help function would be cool, I've never seen one in any fighter jet game.

Changes:

Difficulty a little smaller. And a good graphics upgrade on the levels would make the game much better.

Overall C A good way to waste your time for a few hours, you should be able to beat it by then or be bored enough to not play it for a long while. And why it ranks a low C, compared to a C- to Stealth ATF is beyond me, it is much better than Stealth ATF, guess I can't mess my scoring up.

Final Note: This game isn't too bad for playing or collecting, but don't rush after it expecting anything more than a challenge.

Value: Since I got it on the Maxi 14, I got the whole set of games for $25. But for it loose $4.00 would be fair, and $8.50 complete is good.

Related Games: Stealth A.T.F., F-117 A Stealth fighter, Top Gun 1-2.