#029 – Airwolf

No amount of “the good ol’ days” makes Airwolf fun to play.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Acclaim

DEVELOPER: Beam Software

GENRE: Flight sim

RELEASE DATE: June 1989

The story of Airwolf begins like any other game based on a coke-inspired Eighties television show. A guy that looks like my friend’s dad gives you a mission to end all missions: go blow stuff up. Your goal as a suicidal helicopter-er is to destroy wave after wave of airplanes, while navigating the vacant blue yonder. There is literally nothing to look at in this game other than the planes that appear in your direct line-of-sight. The backgrounds are simply a blue rectangle atop a green “floor.” Your radars keep you up-to-date on how much damage you’re taking and how much fuel you have. The very thought that you have to actually keep track of your fuel, on top of avoiding all of the projectiles flying at you while progressing the game, is astonishing. Reason being? It’s incredibly difficult to progress through the game. Your map shows you flying towards what appears to be your destination, but you never progress. I’m sure there is a way because there are thirty missions in the game, but I personally could never figure it out, nor after blowing up my 3,024,584th plane did I particularly care to.

Instead of violent video games, games like Airwolf should be the ones that are put on trial in Congress. How can our government allow Acclaim to sell this trash to consumers, charging fifty-to-sixty bucks (inflation, you know) for a game that contains no gameplay? This is the real outrage, not pixelated dismembered limbs.

F