Tiger Heli

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Tiger Heli

Developer(s)	Toaplan
Publisher(s)	Taito Corporation
Release date(s)	1985
Genre(s)	Vertical scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Up to two players, alternating
Platform(s)	Arcade, NES, PlayStation, TurboGrafx-16
Input	8-way joystick, two buttons
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade CPU(s)	2 x Z80 @ 6MHz M68705 @ 2 MHz
Arcade sound system(s)	2 x AY8910 @ 1.5MHz
Arcade display	Raster, vertical orientation, 240x280 resolution

Tiger Heli (J: タイガーヘリ) was one of the first games developed by Toaplan (a now defunct Japanese arcade game developer) and published by Taito Corporation in 1985. It is a predecessor to Twin Cobra. The player controls a helicopter named Tiger Heli taking out land-based enemies along the way.

[edit] Gameplay

The game is a vertical scrolling shooter where the player controls a helicopter taking on hordes of enemies which include tanks, battleships, and artillery. It is interesting to note that, besides some airplanes taking off, there are no flying enemies in the entire game. The player's main weapon is an unlimited supply of missiles which travel a max distance of half the screen's height. The player also has two bombs which destroy all objects within a large circular radius. These bombs can be blown off by enemy bullets. The player is killed after only one hit, and is re-spawned to a point approximately one whole vertical screen-length previous. The player is given three lives initially and bonus lives are awarded at 20000 points and every 80000 points thereafter. Flashing crosses scattered throughout each level award players powerups depending on which color the cross is. A red cross will gives the player one side-firing mini-heli which shoots perpendicular to the player's helicopter. A white cross yields a forward firing mini-heli. It is possible to have a mix and match of side-helis, totalling no more than two. The green cross will award the player with an additional bomb, if the player currently has less than two. Grabbing powerups when not necessary yields 5000 points.

There are a total of seven stages, all of which start and end with a helipad. After completion of the last stage, the game will restart in a more difficult mode starting on stage 2. Most of the game's areas contain unnecessary objects to destroy, like houses. This is uncharacteristic for shoot 'em ups at the time.

The NES Version was developed by Micronics, a company known for producing shoddy NES ports of video games.