184 · Airwolf

• It takes more than guts
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Based on the TV Show that I’ve never heard of. Knight Rider but in the air? Well it didn’t talk
    • Spy show mostly with cold war themes.
    • Amazing Synth score...which apparently wasn’t always there
    • The helicopter scenes look great
• Gameplay
  • The game places the player in the cockpit of the Airwolf helicopter attempting to shoot down enemy aircraft and rescue prisoners.
  • Fighting off the enemy aircrafts
    • A helicopter taking down fighter jets?
    • Taking down the bases
  • Perspective/flight controls
    • Now remember I said the helicopter shots in the show were awesome...so why hide it behind a first person view?
  • Navigation
    • The amount of enemy aircrafts missiles being launched at you makes it hard to move around the field
  • Rescuing prisoners
    • Landing as an objective seems very strange
  • Those extreme headshots during the story bits
• Thoughts
  • Could they have done more to put emphasis on this being a helicopter? I don’t feel like I’m controlling a helicopter
  • Thirty missions but besides layouts its the same thing over and over again. I’m glad developers have learned a lot from this
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Airwolf Arcade
    • A lot like Tiger-Heli. Probably for the best this didn’t come to the NES since they are so similar.
  • Airwolf II
    • Only for Amstrad CPC. I’m shocked that they would call this the sequel. It looks like a downgrade in every possible expectation.
  • Super Airwolf / Cross Fire
    • Only called Super Airwolf in Japan. A pretty basic shmup that then becomes an ikari warriors type game. Cool synth soundtrack faithful to the show though
• EGL
• Next week -

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Airwolf, it takes more than guts.

00:15 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Airwolf, it takes more than guts. I literally just said that a second ago, but I'm trying to figure out like, you know, maybe that has to do with and maybe people don't even know this, but Airwolf, the game is based on a TV show. Maybe that was like a tagline in the show.

00:44 I've never heard of the Airwolf TV show, so I can't imagine it did that well. Any familiarity with the TV show, guys? No, had no idea. Yeah. I basically was, I was playing the game and then I decided to read up on the game a bit, and that was when I learned that it was a TV show. Um, and I have no idea how I had never heard anything about it because it seems to have a bit of a following. I hadn't even heard of the lead actor who apparently was like a huge guy that kind of like ruined his life. So, uh, yeah, there's a lot. It was a weird, like exposure of a huge blind spot, uh, playing this game.

01:26 It's got like a, a Knight Rider, but in the air feel, but, but maybe not because the, the, the helicopter doesn't talk. So, um, it's still like, you know, the star of the show. That's true. Pretty much. Sean, there's also another reason why, um, I was kind of surprised we didn't, uh, hear about Airwolf before, and that's because it has like a really sweet synth, like score to the show. The opening theme and just the music in general throughout.

01:50 Um, I thought the, the synth music that I did hear was like right on, and I would have liked to hear maybe more of that in the game itself. It's literally, I think, I think it's just the, the theme over and over, right? Right. Which is fine, but it's not even like a version that, you know, that like sounds as badass as the actual theme song. Yeah. And then most of like the YouTube stuff, like, cause you know, I was just trying to look at scenes of the show and most of the YouTube stuff is just like clips of the show without their audio. And just again, the theme music playing over and over. So it's, I don't know, life imitating art and shit like that.

02:30 And people might think I'm joking here, but I'm being serious. I think for the time, the helicopter scenes in this show look great. Like, uh, you know, sometimes it does look like it's like a toy helicopter. I think it's actually that they're flying a helicopter.

02:45 Yeah. No, I'm saying like some particular like stunts all of a sudden went to like a weird like view where I'm like, that could be the helicopter or it could just be like, you know, with props. But for the most part, yeah, I think they were using a real helicopter that probably is like, you can visit that somewhere now. But, um, you know, I think that that's important that, uh, you know, that's like if the show is about, uh, this helicopter that's unstoppable, the helicopter scenes better be good. And I thought they were. Yeah. Pretty good.

03:14 So the game itself takes place, uh, in like a, you know, a couple of different modes, but let's just say for the most part, you're in this like first person view where, uh, you're in the cockpit of the airwolf helicopter and there's these enemy fighter planes that are coming at you and they're shooting their missiles at you and what have you. So you got to take them down. But at the same time, there's all these prisoners, uh, in different bases that you have to kind of navigate yourself to and then pick them up, uh, and rescue those prisoners.

03:45 Yeah. Each prisoner gets their own, uh, POW camp. It's like a private POW spot where you get a lot of privacy. Yeah. Nobody's even guarding you. Well, it is protected by one repeating explosion off to the Northeast, but that's it.

04:04 I felt like those explosions though, like forget the joke aside, like Sean, that is an amazing joke. And it's funny because you don't consider it in the game. At least I didn't. I never thought that that was strange. Thank you for telling me that it's an amazing joke. Right. No, but I'm saying like hearing you say it, I'm all of a sudden, I'm like, yeah, that is pretty flawed because the map itself is really large, right? Like it takes a while to, uh, fight off the enemy aircrafts and, you know, navigate to the prisoner of war camps. And then it's like, all right, we did it. We're here to pick up the one person.

04:33 Everybody else, I guess, was killed before we got there. I mean, it might be, it might be an instance too, where you see like, what was it? Uh, an early game commando, maybe?

04:45 One of our early games where it's like, you pick up one of those, like one of those run and gun shooters that we played early on. Uh, you pick up, you pick up like one guy and that like represents like a whole camp's worth of, of prisoners. Like maybe you're just going and you're just, you know, you're picking up all the prisoners of the war everywhere, you know, and it's just represented on its map. No, but it's still like, it's still just a helicopter. Like you can't, you can't like say like, oh, this represents the hundreds that you actually saved. Like, no, you can't fit them all in a helicopter. Doesn't make any sense. Sean, it's the air wolf. Well, yeah. Okay.

05:20 That's a good point though, Sean. Yeah, you're right. It's just one helicopter. Something I'd like to bring up though, if I can, you know, a little off topic from maybe the gameplay itself. But, you know, who wants to play as a helicopter against, against fighter jets, no less like a helicopter. That is, yeah, I get it. It's supposed to be the bad-ass air wolf and everything like that. But taking down like these, you know, F-15 fighter jets, like, I don't know, like it seems kind of crazy.

05:45 And I don't think like a helicopter is the most exciting thing. I think we talked about this in the Tiger Heli episode where it was like, you know, if I'm doing a shmup, do I really want to be in a helicopter when I could be in so many other cool things? Like think about the spaceship from Gradius or, you know, Top Gun.

06:00 Top Gun was a cool like first person perspective game where you actually felt like you were Maverick and stuff like that. But here, the helicopter is just, you don't get enough of it to really like feel like you're playing as a helicopter because you don't see it. But to me, it sounds like you just have an anti-helicopter like agenda if you don't like playing as a helicopter in any circumstance. I just don't think that that's like what I go to for the most exciting thing. You know, like I'm not like, wow, a helicopter. I mean, I hear you because like a helicopter in this type of scenario lacks speed.

06:36 Maybe like compared to like a... But that was the thing. That was the thing about Airwolf in the show. It was like a prototype of like a Mach 1 helicopter. So that was its thing. Oh, so it has the speed. It has the speed. Well, my thought about why they would use a helicopter, I mean, obviously they use the helicopter because they're basing it on the show. But that aside, I think the helicopter works a little better in this first person format, at least back on the NES, because you can stop, you know? Yeah. Whereas like it's weird to stop with a plane. You can stop and turn on a dime. And that makes it feel a little more like suited for this first person view when back when first person views were kind of limited in their capabilities.

07:25 That is... It is interesting that you bring that up. Just the fact that you can stop because one of my first attempts at playing this game, I got really frustrated because I realized way too late that I had been stopped for the entire time I was playing the game. I was like, how do I navigate the map? Like... Yeah. Anyway. But remember, I said that the helicopter shots in the show were awesome. So why hide that behind a first person view? Like why remove the airwolf, right? The big thing. Like why hide that from the game? Couldn't they have done something to put more of an emphasis on this being a helicopter? I mean, maybe it's just as simple as they can't make the helicopter.

08:12 If shots in a video game, first person or third person, look that awesome. You know? Like it can look cool, but it's not you can do awesome like visual stunts, you know? Because the player is controlling it anyway. You know what I mean? Like... I do. I guess like what they could have done is instead of like the fake cockpit, like they could have put some sprites of the helicopter and then just had like a heads up display around it. I don't know if that would have made it more exciting. But then now you get to see the helicopter. Because yeah, like there isn't there isn't enough. Aside from you moving around on your map pretty quickly, there isn't really much to contribute to that sense of speed.

09:00 Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And I guess to your point, Mike, like if you did have like the third person view, you could really give it more of a sense of speed like that too, where you can like, you can make it like a fast feeling shmup where you're dodging things and you're moving in between enemies and everything's kind of coming at you. Where here, yeah, you're right. They do have to sort of, I don't know, slow everything down and space everything out a little bit and that makes it feel maybe not as like action packed as you as you would expect based on what it sounds like the show was like. And another part of that, though, is that like no matter how fast you're actually going, you still turn terribly.

09:44 Yes. We'll get into like why that makes this even like an even more like problematic part of the game. But yeah, it doesn't matter if you are if you are just standing still or if you're going at 900 speed units, you're always just going to sort of you're going to have a turning radius of like, I don't know, the earth.

10:11 Just looking at the manual, it seems like, you know, the developers of the game or, you know, whoever localized it, I don't know the story here, but they put the emphasis on like you being Hawk, the main character from the series and like his ability to be the only person who can, you know, control the air wolf and complete this mission. So they're putting the emphasis there. So I get it. Maybe like a first person view then is more like, you know, now you're playing as Hawk. But I don't I don't think that that was the right read for the room. I think air wolf. Right. If you're going to call the game that and the show is mostly about this helicopter, I still think the focus should have been there.

10:48 But I'll get off this topic because, you know, we we do have a game to talk about. And Sean, you were talking about, you know, just navigation in general during these during this first person perspective mode where you have to, you know, you have to fight down these enemy aircrafts. But at the same time, you have to check your mini map to locate the where the prisoners are. And then you have to rescue said prisoners. So do you just want to talk about like how navigation on this map works in general? Yeah. So, you know, the way that you you turn that that's it's pretty self-explanatory. Like you just use the D-pad for that. And I guess for altitude. But I saw it more as just like cocking the helicopter up or down. But I guess that controls altitude.

11:36 And then the interesting thing about this is they're they're doing something with the controller that I feel like I've we've talked about a lot and sort of complained about a lot when it comes to having lots of inputs on such a small and I guess like sparse controller. They started using the start and select key, the start and select button to change your speed. Like if you hold down start, you go faster. If you hold down select, you go slower. And that's how I ended up standing still for like a full level.

12:14 So that's how you move. And then, yeah, you you you it all kind of looks the same from the actual view where you're shooting planes and stuff, but you can tell where you're going from the map below. And that's how you get to each each point of interest on that map. And then once you're like thereabouts hovering over whatever icon is on the map, then it switches to whichever rescue mode or refuel mode or whatever. And they're all just these little tiny mini games that are actually pretty easy.

12:48 And yeah, then you can shoot shoot guns or shoot missiles. And you again, you move way to you turn way too slow. And that's that's how I would describe how you move around. Yeah, no, I think you did. I think it's all encompassing there. That was very thorough. I appreciate that. But let me get your thoughts, you know, while you're on this subject, because it seems like you have some thoughts, you know, the combat portion of that, right? So if you're turning slow and you've got a lot of fighter jets to deal with and stuff like that, how did you feel like did you did you feel like you were managing that stuff? Were you taking a lot of damage? Were you trying to avoid, you know, the fighter jets? What was your strategy there?

13:28 I'd say that there are certain situations where you if you see a missile coming because not only do you see the the planes that you're fighting, but then you get this big circle that slowly starts getting bigger. And that's that's basically their missiles that are that they're shooting at you. if they shoot a missile at the corners of the screen and the the the game has decided that they're moving in a way that is sort of against how you would turn to face them, you are guaranteed to get hit by that missile. It doesn't matter really how you manage it. You kind of have to just assume that anything at the corner might hit you and just start turning towards the guy at the corner.

14:17 But there were the other things I did kind of cheese that is like if I'm near a refuel station or a prisoner or hopefully I'm near the edge of the map, I would just race to that point because then it sort of resets and anything that's in flight against you goes away.

14:39 Um, because yeah, there are certain points where you cannot avoid getting hit. And it doesn't matter how how well you at least in my opinion, in my experience, it didn't seem to matter how well I was sort of navigating that space. I would just get hit. Yeah, I mean, I think that that to me happened. Like, I feel like more often than not, I felt like whenever I died, it was just because there was something I couldn't, I mean, maybe I'm just bad at the game. But also, I feel like there were so many times where I felt like that you just can't catch up to the thing that, you know, that just enters your field of view. Yeah. Um, and as far as the the way you turn, tell me if you guys felt the same way. Like, this could totally be in my imagination.

15:24 But I felt like when you're turning towards an enemy, say there's an enemy towards the left of your screen, and I try to turn to the left. And even if that enemy doesn't appear to be also moving to the left, I feel like the game doesn't properly factor in, like, where I am in space against where they are in space. Like, I feel like it still keeps it sort of in the same spot on the screen a little too long or something. You know, like things that are fixed on the ground move across the screen when like when I move to the left, I see it move across to the right of my screen.

15:57 Obviously, things that are in the air could be moving to the left with me. But it just feels like even when it looks like it's turning to the right, it just stays in the same spot on the screen for too long. It's still moving counter to where you need it to be. Yeah. It was very frustrating because it just felt like you could almost, in some cases, just you can just never reach them. At the speeds that they're proposing the enemy crafts are going, right? Especially with them kind of following along with you turning.

16:23 You know, they should be flying past you more often than not too. Yeah. Like, they should be some, you know, like they're going so fast. I think there's also just like a, and you know, this is solved by a mechanic they put down of like, you know, destroying the bases themselves to stop enemies from spawning. But, you know, there is, there is too much of the enemies. And I feel like you learn as a player, it's in your best interest not to, like definitely to take down the missiles that, that come at you early enough and to take down some fighter jets this way you're not like littered with a screen of them.

17:00 However, I don't think it's in your best interest to try to keep taking them down because when I was trying to do that, like, okay, I just need to get through these waves or whatever. You kind of understand that the waves are unlimited and it makes you almost like, it diverts you from any of the prisoner, you know, that you're supposed to rescue.

17:18 And then like, maybe if you're lucky, you get saved, you know, like you just like randomly spawn into another prisoner camp that you didn't know about or something. Exactly, yeah. But like, you know, otherwise it's like the one that you're supposed to get to on the mini map, it's like good luck actually going over there and following that one, you know, while also trying to take down everything that's in your way. And to me, that also makes the Airwolf seem like it's not the best guy for the day.

17:45 Yeah, because the, my strategy was to try to always keep in mind where my next target was. Like if I was going to go get fuel or if I was going to go to a prisoner and do my best to sort of like fight against the instinct of chasing, of chasing these planes around. Because if you do that, you'll end up just spinning in circles and you're nowhere near where you want to be anymore.

18:15 Because you just attempting to like aim at somebody is actually going to turn you maybe like 90 degrees or 180 degrees. So some you just have to like let go. And it's hard to do that when maybe they shot something at you and you also need to, you need to save yourself. That just extends it. And I guess maybe that's part of the challenge of the game is trying not to get so far off course, but also not taking damage. So you got to like, you have to give yourself like some leeway there. Uh, but it is just a weird, uh, like tying aiming in your field of view to where you are

18:58 going. Uh, it, it, it leads to a lot of like juggling in your head and it doesn't feel all that, uh, intuitive to me. And if they really wanted you to take your time and, and, you know, use strategy to this, why include, you know, according to the manual, I didn't play them all. Why include 20 levels of this, you know, over and over and over again. It's like, you know, it's long enough taking down, uh, you know, a single map and risking all the prisoners. And I'm not, you know, like that's fair.

19:25 Like that, you know, that sounds good and everything like that, but then to do that like 20 more times, uh, you know, assuming that you want to like take it slow and everything like that. I don't know. I feel like eventually you're going to be encouraged to take some shortcuts and cheese the game a little bit. If you can figure out how to cheese it, I, I certainly couldn't, but like, I feel like you're incentivized to speed up a little bit, not slow down.

19:46 Yeah. Um, I, I definitely would just, just went fast so that I could like hopefully outrun the missile, uh, by the time that I got to either the edge of the map to end the level or to whichever thing I was trying to pick up. Um, and I'd, I'd say like, well, okay. Yeah, I know 20 levels of doing the same thing over and over. Uh, it does, it doesn't sound that appetizing. I get that as the levels progress, there are more, um, that there are more prisoners to pick up. And that is sort of like to add to the challenge. And sometimes you'll actually need to go refuel instead of using it as like an out to, to escape a missile or something.

20:31 Um, but I don't think anything else meaningfully changes throughout those 20 levels. It's just like pick up more enemies aside from the idea that like the, the backgrounds are kind of changing to give some, you know, some visual changes, but yeah, go ahead, Joe.

20:47 Yeah, no, I was going to say that was kind of my, my biggest takeaway too, is that like, it's, it's just, I mean, I, I know so many games are like repetitive gameplay loop, especially in this era, but it's just too repetitive. I mean, even like just adding more, more enemies to pick up feels to me like when the game tries to make itself harder by just adding more enemies, just throwing them all in the same spot without like thinking about what makes it difficult or without thinking about enemy placement or something like that.

21:14 Because I mean, the picking up the enemies is, is almost like that's designed in a way we haven't talked about it yet, but it's designed in a way where it could be a cool mini game of its own. You have to sort of finesse the landing of your helicopter and, and, and dodge any like towers and obstacles and explosions in your way. The problem is there's like one tower and one explosion that's always in the same spot in every single one. It never changes.

21:39 So like you get there, you do this thing that they, that they went to the trouble of making it feel like you have to actually land the helicopter and you have to dodge things. And then they just never seemed to went through the trouble of designing levels around that. They just kind of did like a reskin of the same exact thing over and over and over again. Right. It's the kind of thing you expect, uh, you know, from an arcade game.

22:00 And what I mean by that is like, you know, when the levels, uh, or when the, the gameplay loop repeats itself very quickly, um, the idea there is like, you know, maybe things happen faster or there's more of them or, you know, you're supposed to do that. But usually those games have, you know, arcade games are usually like one of two different things. They're either like very fast levels. And the idea is, is like, you know, you, it's almost like a rhythm thing where you keep getting better and the levels keep getting harder or, uh, you know, the gameplay itself is kind of simple and straightforward.

22:33 I don't think airwolf soft offering either of those here. I don't, I don't think this feels like an arcade game. This actually, you know, crazy as it sounds like it feels like an NES game. It feels like a home console game. I wouldn't want to play this in the arcade. I'd want to sit down and spend some time with it at home. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it feels like there's, there's missions and it's like,

22:51 it's like a, you know, you've got goals and it's like a little bit of a journey to like get to the end of it. It's just, there's just not enough like variety in the gameplay. And I'm not asking for them to have like done some crazy thing that changes the whole game, but like with those picking up the, you know, with those profile view levels where you're picking up, uh, if you want to even call them levels where you're picking up the hostages.

23:15 Do you remember, do you guys remember that there was like a browser game where you're a helicopter and you, it's just like one button is to go up and then let go of the button and you go down and you have to dodge between things. What eventually became Flappy Bird?

23:27 Uh, sort of. Yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah. You hold the button just to go up and then let go of it. Um, like that's what this, pretty much is like, that's the way, like how this controls.

23:39 There's, there's just no obstacle. Like put some explosions, put some things for me to dodge, put some, you know, some things in there for me to make it a little different. No, if they reframed it, not so much as a, okay, here's the spot that you land, just land there and don't, don't hit the pole.

23:56 If they reframed it as sort of like, oh, you, you, you have to, now you're close to the ground and now you have to dodge like, like some enemy fire. And like, I know in that browser game, like, yeah, just don't hit the walls, like the, the scrolling ceiling and shit. Like what you have to do is recontextualize that as like enemy fire and. Exactly. And then it's a much more engaging thing except for like, yeah, all 20 levels. It's the same, it's the same landing sequence.

24:25 Yeah. I couldn't believe that. It's like, it's like a whole part of the game that they programmed is pretty much wasted because of that. Yeah. But if I had to guess, I think it's just like, they put way too much development time and resources into this, you know, probably very intensive first person, uh, you know, fighter jet combat simulator, you know, which like to me isn't like, isn't the essence of, you know, the show or what the game should necessarily be about because I keep trying to say it's a helicopter, but I don't feel like it.

24:54 Um, you know, there's something interesting here about like, Joe, you're, you're bringing up a good point here about like the rescuing the prisoners is always being the same, but like, maybe that should have just even been more of the game. It's such a short experience. Who cares about like, you know, that they repeated it over and over again when the actual like thing that it is happens so quickly that it's almost like, you know, you spend 95% of the game in this first person view. And then it's like, Oh yeah, I didn't even realize I was here, but now I'm in this side scrolling view and I've just got to make sure I do the thing I always do.

25:27 Uh, okay. Now back to the game, you know, like it almost doesn't feel like it's, it's too rude. It's like a weird, a little weird pause. And like, I think a big part of my point is that like, it seems like they did the hard work of making another part of this game. It's all, it all works. It feels good to control the helicopter and that thing. Why didn't they just put some things in there to make it interesting?

25:48 Yeah. You know, and then you can go, you can go refuel and you know how you refuel by doing exactly the same thing you do to pick up a, pick up a hostage. It's literally exactly the same thing, except there's a fuel, uh, drum there instead of a hostage. Some goofball shit. They should have. Yeah. Goofball shit. I like that. Uh, they should have, what they should have done is like when you get to the, the, you know, rescue the prisoners part of the level, it goes like side scrolling, helicopter shmup style.

26:19 And now you take on like other types of, you know, enemy aircrafts or, you know, ground things too. So you have like your, your missiles and your bombs now, and you got to make your way through like this, this part of the stage in order to get to the prisoners. It shouldn't just be like the prisoners just hanging out in essentially an open field while there's a swarm, you know, like what you would consider a swarm of bees worth of enemy aircrafts hanging around in the space. But the prisoners are like, Hey, we're free. Just come down and pick us up. Yeah. That is weird. Actually, there's no enemies. There's just that one explosion,

26:55 which I have to assume that explosion. Cause you pointed this out much earlier in the episode. I have to assume that what they meant by that is like those explosions are like the missiles that the enemy aircrafts were shooting at you.

27:08 Yeah. It looks like they're trying to, uh, they're trying to put like, you know, how anti-aircraft weapons just sort of explode in the air. And they use most of a lot of images of World War II have these, uh, these big, these big explosions in the air. I feel like they're doing that, but they needed to do it in more than one spot to like sell it. Like I would buy it if it was more like random and maybe looked like fireworks were going off in different spots on the screen. But yeah, otherwise, otherwise it just looks kind of goofy and half baked. I don't know. Yeah. And it's literally in a spot on the screen that you never have to go to. Yeah. Like just don't go over there and you win. Like you won't die.

27:52 Well, you gotta go, you have to go down slowly. Yeah. Yeah. You have to go down slowly, but the explosion is always to the right of where you need to go down. I'm watching video of it right now. You can not die. I mean, you can still die, but. Oh yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. You do have to land slowly, but the explosion will never get you unless you deliberately fly over to the explosion. Okay. So, you know, I think we've covered what we can about the, um, rescuing the prisoners, but I want to talk about this all day. Well, I would like to talk about, you know, destroying the bases.

28:24 Um, did you know, any thoughts there about how that maybe also was changing the game a little bit from the, uh, from the first person perspective? I mean, it is the same. Yeah. Yeah. It's still the same thing that there's no, yeah, there's no change in perspective now. It's, it's just that it populates a, uh, like an, an aircraft tower. Um, and you just shoot it a few times and it'll shoot at you, but it's, it's bullets always end up like overlapping the tower. So it's pretty easy to at least dodge those and like destroy those. Um, but again, this is an example of a part of the game that never changes, uh, and all 20 levels. You just shoot the tower and it explodes.

29:09 If they had different kinds of towers that like, Oh, maybe it's got a weak spot that you have to hit and there are other weapons that are firing at you or something else, just something else. Uh, it would be a bit more, a bit more engaging. Um, but no, it's the same tower on every level.

29:32 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's nice that it gives you like a goal. That's not just, you know, shooting down all the other planes. Like it gives you a little goal, but like, but it does get old. I just think that, yeah, for the, for a game like this, it's just, it's just not enough of a gameplay loop variety for me.

29:53 Joe, that's not mandatory though. Uh, you know, that's like a bonus thing of like, Hey, if you want, you could take down the, uh, the, and then you get your little report card at the end and that tells you like what you did. Yeah. Um, I mean, I know, but I appreciate that part at least a little bit that like, it's not, you know, the same, like that's actually just something that they included to, you know, help you in a way. Not that I can tell, but I know that that is the case that if you, if you blow it up, then there'll be less fighters that are trying to take you down. But I, I could not tell the difference.

30:29 Yeah. I mean, I guess I'll say that it adds at least in the, like the context of what's going on and add that little extra like immersion, like, Oh, I can destroy these and supposedly there'd be less enemies, but yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know. I think almost going back to what you said before, Mike, that for them to have put, made this sort of, I mean, we've seen this done before, but made this sort of 3d first person view, maybe just meant that like the rest of it had to be incredibly simple.

31:01 That's the only thing I could think of, but, um, you know, whether that was the right decision or not, I don't know. You know, I think on our Top Gun episode, you know, Sean made a good case for why he thought that was an essential game and we all seem to enjoy it. You know, uh, that also didn't, wasn't always in the first person. It had the, uh, landing on the carriers and everything like that. And, um, you know, I think they've just found a way in Top Gun to manage you controlling a aircraft and dealing with enemies and, and what that entails a lot. They, they made that not simpler, but they made it more like time and resource effective than what, uh, Airwolf is, is trying to do here where it seems like, you know,

31:46 yeah, they've filled, you know, they've, there's enemies everywhere and there's towers you can take down and there's prisoners you got to rescue. But at the end of the day, it just has a stale feeling to it after you've played for, you know, for what do you want to say? 15 minutes? If you played for 15 minutes after that, I feel like it got kind of stale.

32:04 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I'll agree. Yeah. And, and you know, once you, you know, once you just mentioned Top Gun, I just, I just hopped on over to a video of Top Gun to remind myself and it looks so much more, the motion looks so much more, you know, like fluid and fast and it, and it feels like you're moving, you know, I mean, they have these clouds that whiz past you and it, and it just, I mean, obviously I'm not playing it right now, but just from watching this guy on YouTube playing it, it looks like the turning is so much more fluid. I think that they just, you know, got the mechanics down better too in Top Gun. Yeah, I agree.

32:39 Well, if you're watching that video though, and I'm sure, you know, fans of Top Gun might want to check out Airwolf too. But, um, if you're watching that video, Joe, you'll also see that like, I don't know. It's just like enemies are, are handled better. Like there's, there's land and sea and they're not like always at you, you know, they just kind of like, they appear and it becomes more like Sean was saying earlier. Like that's when it becomes like a strategic battle, like a one-on-one dog fight as opposed to here where it's like seven on one. And I don't really feel like I'm any, I'm any more powerful than any individual.

33:13 One of those enemy air. Yes. Yeah. And I'm, you know, they're, they're, they're moving through space, you know, obviously they're doing that in this game too, but it doesn't feel like it because everything is like so slow relative to you. Whereas in Top Gun, things are moving away from you and moving towards you. And, you know, it feels like where you're turning affects where everything else is relative to you. Another nitpicky thing that I have, you know, the debriefing of the missions,

33:40 a nice touch for sure that, uh, we get to hear from another character from Airwolf. I forget the, uh, the general's name. I'm going to look it up here. Looks like, uh, the, is that really his name? Archangel? Is that Ernest Borgnine? Uh, it's Michael Coltsmith Briggs the third.

34:00 Okay. Yeah. Mick Briggs the third. Uh, I'm making all this up. I wish we knew the show better. We don't. Um, but it is an Emmanuel that, uh, Briggs the Briggs three, uh, contacted Hawk. So Briggs three, I don't know. Does he want to be called the third? Like, seems like he does because he puts it in both his, uh, from, and he puts it in his signature. Like I, I'm, I'm the second, but I don't put the, the, the Roman numeral two on my signatures for my checks. You know, I think that's like, this guy is really, you know, he's really appreciating, is the third.

34:37 I mean, I feel like the third is, is probably the best of the, uh, um, like you can't like, yeah, you can't be a junior junior is emasculating, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I'm the second and not junior, but I think 16 it's go 16 or bust man. Like 16, the 16, I feel like once you get, I like that's, that's too many. That's too much investment in time. No, no. I think that, I think that once, once, you know, the third is good. The fourth, fifth, it starts to get a little stale, but like once you get to like ridiculously high numbers, like you got to bring it back at that point. You're like, we got the 16. I'm the 16th.

35:14 I should look up and see if I'm truly the second or if I can find older ancestors. Uh, anyway, back to the point I was making, I think he's the one who shows up on these debriefing missions and, um, you know, it's cool. And the pixel art is, is fine for what it's worth. Like it's, I would have liked to have seen some mouth movement or something, but like, why is the headshot so extreme close up? Like he's so close to the screen. I don't know. Um, if that was really there, Mike, I don't know. Like, yeah, I guess like, he's a close talker. Yeah. I guess it depends on where you put your TV though.

35:52 Should I put my TV like at exactly like five foot nine? Is this way I feel like he's in the room? This guy just gets way up in your face and it's like, that was really impressive. There aren't many pilots that would do that.

36:05 And, and, and then he just keeps making aggressive eye contact with you at six, at three inches away. And was anyone else startled by the airwolf logo? Yeah. That like wolf looking thing with the crazy colors. Like, I don't know. I just wasn't expecting that. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't expecting it. It's funny. Cause that logo is like the only thing that's familiar to me. Like I definitely have seen that logo before. Yeah. It's on, uh, it's on the guy's jacket, uh, in the show. Yeah. But Joe doesn't. I didn't see any of the show. Well, now you have. Oh wait, I was in the show. Yeah. You were, you were in the show. Yeah. You're that famous guy that Sean couldn't remember.

36:48 Yeah. That whose life, who did something with his life or something you said? Yeah. He ruined his life by joining a podcast. Yeah. I was just going to say the same thing.

36:59 I mean, if we, if we want to talk about like off topic stuff, like Jan Michael Vincent, who was the star of that show, uh, like I was trying to find video of the show. And instead I saw this like compilation of like basically the sad, like, uh, downward spiral of this guy's life due to like, uh, alcohol abuse and a bunch of car accidents. Like it was, it was a really weird, it was a really weird, uh, uh, uh, like side, side quest of doing research for this episode of like, oh no, now I'm sad.

37:38 Now he's like immortalized for that Rick and Morty sketch. Yeah. Oh, was that, this is that in Rick and Morty? Yeah. This is the first that I've heard of, uh, like him in context outside of Rick and Morty. Oh wow. I guess. Yeah. It's like this January, Michael, your visit Vincent's or something. You better Michael down your Vincent's.

37:58 He's like in a world where there's only 12 Jan Michael Vincent's. This is one of those interdimensional cable. Oh, I see. He also goes by Michael Vincent and Mike Vincent, according to Wikipedia. I just saw that.

38:34 In terms of sequels and spinoffs, we have, uh, Airwolf, the arcade game, which actually came out before this. For some reason, they had an arcade game up and running that seemed very straightforward and something that you would want to put on the NES. But instead, Acclaim was like, no, I want, I want my own version of, of, uh, Airwolf. I don't want the arcade game. I need one specifically developed for the NES.

38:58 So that's what we got the NES game and, uh, love it or hate it. That's what it is. But Airwolf, the arcade game is actually just like a, a straightforward helicopter shmup, a lot like Tiger Heli. So I guess it's probably for the best that this game didn't come to the NES since like, it's so similar to Tiger Heli that it's like, you might as well just buy one or the other. And I'm sure people, you know, people could get enough from one of them. They don't need to be like, you know, I'm really in search of more helicopter shmups. Like, can I get any more of those? After that, we have Airwolf. I just, you know, I usually, you guys react.

39:34 I know. I was like, well, I should say something. I went, I said anything. I should say something. One of us should. And then you just kept going. But that shows how little people care about helicopter shmups. Yeah. Nobody wants to play as a helicopter. Mike is right about this. Helicopters suck. Nobody ever liked helicopters. And he never wants to play as a helicopter again.

39:53 Yeah. Agreed. So, um, Airwolf 2, the Roman numeral 2, just like Briggs is. I think it's Airwolf the 2nd. Yeah, Airwolf the 2nd. Um, it came out, believe it or not, but only for the Amstrad CPC, uh, which I imagine is some kind of personal computer only in Europe or something like that. I've never heard of it. You guys ever hear this thing? No. Uh, no. Well, I'm actually shocked that they would call this the sequel, like Airwolf 2. And whether it's the sequel to most likely the arcade game or the NES game, I don't think it matters. Because this game is a downgrade in every possible expectation of what a sequel could be.

40:37 Uh, you know, graphics? Shit. Music? Shit. Gameplay? Shit. Uh, you know, even like, even the concept of what it would be to be a helicopter shmup? Garbage. Like, this game looks like, like, absolute trash. But maybe that's just because of the limitations of the, uh, CPC. And you would think that it stops there. Oh, Joe, were you gonna say something? Well, listen, what did you say this far? I'm seeing, I'm just looking to see what you're talking about. And I'm seeing one for the ZX Spectrum.

41:05 I wonder if that's the same thing. It also looks pretty bad. The, but that's Airwolf 2? Yeah, Airwolf Roman numeral 2. There's a lot of, there's a lot of Airwolves, uh, and a lot of Airwolf 2s. I think it was just like, yeah, they were released on different platforms at the same time. Oh, so maybe, yeah, so it wasn't just for the, uh, CPC. But I mean, it's all that, it's all that stuff. Like, yeah, the Commodore 64 and, and, uh, the ZX, like, I think they're all in that same bracket of performance and stuff.

41:34 So, it all probably looked like shit. Now you guys, yeah, you made me look that up and I just found out that Airwolf the second is actually the 35th episode of the TV show Airwolf and the second episode of season three. They literally called it Airwolf 2. Huh? But with the Roman numerals. Oh, maybe it was like another, like, physical Airwolf. Yeah. The firm has secretly developed a new advanced helicopter.

42:01 This one could go Mach 2. Yeah. Uh, how much you want to bet that, like, the helicopter goes bad or something? Yeah. Probably. Um, oh wow, having no further need for Airwolf, uh, Zeus fires Archangel, accusing him of being of disloyalty to the firm. F.I.R. Dot M. So, the firm is actually- I gotta watch this show. Like, I- This show sounds awesome. I know. I- I- From the, from the clips I saw, it looks just campy enough with cool enough, like, action scenes that I- I wanna watch it now. Yeah, so they, they wind up, uh, stealing the Red Wolf, which is the new, um, you know, the new advanced Airwolf. They wind up stealing it and selling it to a group of South American

42:49 revolutionaries. Oh? South American? South American revolutionaries. Yeah, they didn't travel back in time and give it to us in the 1700s. Uh, they gave it to the South American revolutionaries. And, uh, you know, that's just- that's interesting, and this is a better tangent than that awful Airwolf 2 port game that calls itself a sequel, but really isn't. I can't think of too many other games that are like that, you know? Like, sequels- like, yeah, there are sequels that are worse, but, like, sequels that, like, nobody would accept.

43:18 I can't think of something like that. You know, like, there are always, like, some kind of, like, well, we added this, or the graphics look better, or, you know, after 20 year wait, it's like, this is just- we made this if you want it. Well, okay, so it looks like Airwolf 2, the second, is a sequel to, uh, the Airwolves that came out on those, uh, personal computers, because, like, Acclaim made Airwolf for NES, but all of these oldie, oldie Airwolves are made by Elite. So, that was their own secondary

43:59 Airwolf, uh, uh, licensed game series. So, it is- I don't think it has any, uh, actual attachment to the Acclaim game. Well, yeah, not to the Acclaim game, but maybe the arcade game? Maybe those are ports of the arcade game? Not even- even those, not so much.

44:16 Oh, interesting. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Hey. A lot of people wanted a piece of Airwolf. They wanted a piece of Airwolf, uh, that action, that money, that Jan Michael Vincent, you know, they wanted it all. And there's only eight Jan Michael Vincents, so- Yeah. And I'll tell you another thing. They- they wanted Airwolf so much that it actually made it all the way over to the Mega Drive in Japan, what we know as the Genesis, for Super Airwolf. Now, it's only called Super Airwolf in Japan, which I'm like, wow, did that have a following on TV in- in Japan? Because in- in America, by the time it came out, you know, uh, the Airwolf was dead.

44:52 So, Crossfire, um, is- is what it was called here on the Genesis. And it's the same exact game, but they actually removed the constantly playing Airwolf theme song. Aww. And- and any names associated with Airwolf, I guess, because they didn't have the- the license. But it's like, why would you stick with that in Japan? I guess it must have had a pretty big following.

45:13 But either way, it's a pretty basic shmup, uh, for, you know, for 16-bit consoles. And then, all of a sudden, it just, like, occasionally, like, you jump out of the helicopter and it becomes an Ikari Warriors type game where you're on the ground and you're, you know, shooting up people and it's still top-down and everything. It's got a- got a cool synth soundtrack, though, faithful to the show, but only if you're playing Super Airwolf, not Crossfire.

45:38 Huh. Well, I think we've been, uh, as faithful as we can be to Airwolf in the, uh, in the time that we've reviewed it, you know? Like, uh, we gave it- we gave it an honest assessment. We- definitely did the TV show. I don't think we ever talked about the media as much as the game as we have today. Yeah, I mean, I'm just kind of enamored by it right now. So, the- the last thing we have to do is give it an honest assessment of whether it winds up on the Essential Games list.

46:08 Joe? Airwolf? I mean- I don't think that anyone's gonna be surprised by my vote based on what we've talked about today, and I think we sort of said it all. It- it needed, in my opinion, a little more variety. It needed to control better. It needed to be at least as good as, uh, you know, as Top Gun or other games that we've played in this kind of style in order for me to- to, uh, look at it as an essential game, even just for the- for those portions of the game. Um, I think, yeah, I think it could have used a little more development, personally. So, I'm going to say no.

46:45 Sean? Um, yeah. On paper, I- I like the idea of this game. Um, it's- it- it has- it has some elements of, like, all- you- all you do the landing, do the rescuing, do the flying, do the shooting, um, all in different kind of ways. Uh, so I- I liked that. I liked that when I was reading the manual.

47:07 Um, but at the end of the day, a vehicular combat game, uh, the- the vehicle that you're driving around, or flying around, has to feel good to do that with. Like, it has to feel good. In this game, it does not feel good to fly this helicopter. Uh, and that is 99% of the experience, um, that you do get to have, you know, those close talker, uh, uh, post-game wrap-ups. Um, so, it- with that, this is not essential. All right. The only thing I'll add from what I've been saying in the episode is, you know, just imagine that you got your hands on, like, the newest Godzilla game, right? And it's- it's gonna be awesome, because it's Godzilla, and how could it not be?

47:56 But, it's- Godzilla's, like, really small in this one. Like, he just can't do- He's a helicopter in this one. No, he's really small, and he just, like- the cities are, like, in the background, they're not really something you attack, or something like that. They kind of, like, throw these, like, ants that are, like, Godzilla's size, uh, as, like, the enemies that you have to blow fire at, or scratch at, or whatever his attacks would be. And it's, like, yeah, I mean, like, all right, it's not following the exact plot of any particular movie of Godzilla I know, and I don't really know those ants or whatever, but, like, okay, I'm playing as Godzilla, so- and I- and I love Godzilla, so this must be a great game, right? Because I'm playing as Godzilla.

48:38 That's how I imagine Airwolf fans felt like. They didn't really get to be in the badass helicopter that can do anything and everything. This helicopter can shoot bullets and fire missiles, and even the missiles aren't unlimited. So, I think that's what it comes down to, is, like, ultimately, even fans of the show shouldn't necessarily be in love with this game, because- and you know I hate helicopters, but there's a way to make this game, uh, you know, like, more about the helicopter itself and more, uh,

49:09 more based around that. And I feel like what they went with instead was not thinking about, um, the- you know, the Airwolf itself strengths, and instead just thinking, like, well, it's gonna be a first-person perspective game where you take down enemy aircrafts, and it's like, cool, let's just attach a license to it. And that's what I think we got, so I can't put that on the Essential Games list, uh, on any day of the week. Even Thursdays?

49:35 Definitely not on Thursdays, because we would never post an episode on Thursdays. It's always Fridays at, uh, 8am, for some reason. 8am's where it's at. Airwolf, not on the Essential Games list, but it will have a chance again in our best of 1989. I don't know why I felt like saying that. I thought that would be funny. Um, uh, you know, next week we have another game-

49:56 What are you gonna say, Sean? No, I mean, we're not gonna have that episode for, like, a year and a half, right? Yeah, yeah, right. So you'll have a lot of time to consider it. You'll have a lot more time to play Airwolf. Um, what I was gonna say is, next week we have another game, because that's how the format of the show works. Every week, different game. The next game, chronologically, according to North American releases. And we're currently in June of 1989, for those following along. So, June of 1989 consisted of The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Airwolf, and now next week's game,

50:27 California Games. Um, which, uh, you know, implies to be more than one game. I'm joking. We all know what this is. We've played all these other games, uh, winter games, summer games. Uh, so now we finally get California Games, the natural progression in seasons.

50:44 Winter, summer, California. Love it. Uh, anyway, if you want to hear more about the podcast, you can always find us on Twitter at NostalgiaCast, N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-Cast. Uh, I could keep spelling, but you're not here to listen to me spell, you're here to listen to me plug things, like the Twitter, or like my own, uh, Twitter, at Esposito Film. And I am Michael Esposito, you can, uh, find us every Friday, or any day of the week, if you go to that Twitter page I was talking about. Everybody have a great week, especially Joe.

51:17 Me, Joe, or one of our listeners, Joe? Or both? Because you asked one of our listeners. Okay, that's fine. I would rather give it to one of the listeners, you know, they're loyal. Amazing. Uh, Sean, have an okay week.

51:56 This Sean, or one of our listeners, Sean?