NES games collection series - Tiger Heli

Nintendo Games for PSP.

to play must copy the NES emulator.

http://a-psp.blogspot.com/2008/04/nesterj-nes-emulator-for-psp-v111.html

If there was one thing the NES needed more than anything back in the 80’s it has to be decent arcade ports. With the poor colour palette compared to the likes of the Master System it makes a nice change to see Acclaim attempt as close a direct port with Tiger-Heli.

A simple plot, a terrorist country named Cantun has set its sights set on taking over the world, and it is up to you as Tiger-Heli’s pilot to defeat them. No in game text or even an ending to speak of, the game loops forever after you complete all its 4 stages. You won’t even come up against any other flying enemies let alone bosses which must be a first for the time.

You would be forgiven for thinking the game seems very much like Xevious and it’s true to some extent that they both share the similar scrolling/shooting gameplay. The main difference here is the Tiger-Heli is fairly powerful and along the way you can destroy crates to discover power-ups from doubling your rate of fire, extra lives, mega bombs and mini Tiger-Heli’s that fly by your side shooting to cover them. The mega bombs are more of a last chance shot clearing a huge area of enemies around the Tiger-Heli but with a lack of any bosses to fight it means you don’t need to plan saving these for large lengths of time.

One of the main concerns when flying over all the terrain is the lack of any flying enemies, besides seeing a few planes takes off at airports everything else is ground based attacks. You are free to destroy any building you come across and although these don’t fire back it’s a fun way to earn some points. The controls are responsive enough that the Tiger-Heli has a fair turn off speed but can often be out run by bullets, a couple of close shaves can be had trying to dodge enemy bullets at times. With B to fire and A to drop the Mega Bomb controls are simple and easy to grasp meaning the player never feels overwhelmed in those fast paced moments.

There is very little slow down even for a PAL game despite the screen becoming packed with enemy tanks at times, it does suffer from the dreaded flicker but the large well-drawn sprites more than make up for this. Considering Tiger-Heli is an early shooter it looks quite good compared to its arcade cousin and replicates each of the 4 arcade stages well.

With the infinite loop after the last stage you might feel the game would be lacking however it avoids this just by being fun and upping the difficulty. The longer you last the harder it becomes so it actually is a fun challenge to earn a high score. Tiger-Heli won’t set any NES’s on fire with its gameplay but with enough fun and challenge for quick bursts it’s well worth picking up, after all games are meant to be played for fun which Tiger-Heli has in spades.




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