Reviews

This is one of those most infuriating of games. It entices you in with some attractive graphics, that still look quite good given the limitations of what the Spectrum can do, but is so utterly finicky to play that you can almost guarantee that you'll end up cursing it in frustration when you've finally had enough and given up.

Of course, there's a good reason why the game is so difficult and that's because it's only got 12 screens, a couple of which are pretty much empty with just a bit of scenery you can crash into. With a more reasonable level of difficulty you'd probably be able to master it in the space of a few minutes.

Getting past the second screen, with its regenerating forcefield is difficult enough, but that's only a foretaste of what's yet to come as you'll need pixel perfect positioning and split second timing to get past some of the later screens.

It's a game that I played to a finish more out of duty than because I enjoyed it, and there as always the hope that with a bit of practice it would suddenly become a bit more fun to play. Sadly it doesn't.

Airwolf is quite a controversial game, the total opposite of Bruce Lee, Airwolf can be very frustrating and very difficult but stick with the game as it gets better and better.

The first major screen is the famous 'wall'. This is actually easy to shoot through, keep pressing down/up (Dont float down) so you can shoot horizontally to destroy the wall. With practice this is easy to do.

The second wall you dont even have to blast, theres a screen on the left for a reason, come in from the left and you can fly around the wall before it builds.

The game is a decent shoot em up, needs a few more screens but for its day I think its a great little game and one I played a ton back in the day and still enjoy a blast now. Just hearing the sound effects brings back memories of taking turns playing this game with my best mate at the time.

In this game, as you may expect - you fly the Airwolf helicopter. You must rescue some scientists from a cavern system. The game being called "Airwolf" also means it's a license tie-in with a TV programme. Unfortunately, "license tie-in" is usually a synonym for "terrible, overpriced game".

And indeed, it was a bit on the pricey side, although nothing so bad as "Ghostbusters".

It's actually not such a bad game, though. Graphically, it's very well presented, and it's challenging to play. Unfortunately, it's also a bit frustrating to play - it relies far too heavily on pixel perfect positioning, instead of something that still requires a lot of skill, but not ridiculous precision. I suppose the author wanted to capture some of what it's like to hover a real helicopter, which is a bit like trying to balance a marble on the end of a pin. It's also a bit on the short side, having only a dozen screens, and some of these not all that worthwhile.

Today it is worth downloading and playing, but it doesn't have the lasting appeal that will have you repeatedly coming back to it like many other Spectrum games - once you've played it through once, you don't really feel like returning to it.

This could have been special if the gameplay was more balanced and less awkward. Too frustrating for my interest.

In spite of its maddening difficulty and awkward controls I still consider Airwolf to be a classic ! ! !

There is something quite appealing about this game that I cannot put into words . . .


3,5 / 5 .

Matt B's review sums it up near enough. 10-12 sceens didn't represent value and protecting them with pixel perfect skill requirements to make the game last longer was cynical.

1984 Elite (UK)
by Richard Wilcox

Airwolf became famous for it's infamous difficulty level of play. If you could master this game, then you would be king of the keyboard.
It had everything to be a winner and a classic, cool colourful graphics, adequate sound, smooth movement. But it was too hard for us 80's kids, even harder than some of the era coin-ops (designed to make you lose fast and spent as much money as possible). It really felt like an impossible mission.
I have only completed the game this year, with a score of 2111 points and only because I set my mind in finishing it, after all this was and still is a classic in my eyes, but man, it took quite a lot of playing.


I decided to give it a 4 just because it has a small bug, which consists of remaining pixels left after your Helicopter is blown and a life is lost, then when you continue if you clash into those pixels (sometimes just one) you lose a life. This just happens from time to time and I only noticed it in a particular screen which I find the hardest one, but I'm certain it happen along the game. This doesn't spoil the game much, because it seldom happens.

Now if you wanna finished the game be prepared for giant amounts of patience and concentration, and the game can became quite addictive!

Technically this game is very good, soft movements, a map game almost infinite...

This game is almost as difficult as Ramon Rodriguez....what it is a pity I doubt that more than 5 people have reached its final without any kind of tricks.

A classic game by Elite in which you control the billion-dollar helicopter to rescue five scientists from a subterranean base in the Arizona desert.

The game map is short, about 40 screens, with the usual Elite pretty graphics where you must rescue the scientists one by one, always following the same path, which becomes repetitive.

A game that has a charm the first times that is played, but the difficulty level is so hard that becomes frustrating.