Thunderhawk (Video Game)

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Thunderhawk

Developer(s)	Core Design
Release date(s)	1991
Genre(s)	Action game
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC, Mega-CD (Sega-CD)
Media	Floppy disk, CD
Input	Mouse, Gamepad, Keyboard

Thunderhawk is a helicopter combat simulator game released by Core Design for the Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC (DOS) in 1991, and for the Sega Mega-CD (Sega-CD in the US) in 1993.
The game was renamed to Thunder Strike for its USA release.

In the game the player is part of the "MERLIN" helicopter combat assault team, flying an AH-73M helicopter. The game has been described as a first person version of the Strike series of games.

The game consists of several campaigns for each one of ten world areas, the campaigns are themed around real events or activities in these areas (e.g UN convoy relates to the Bosnian war, South China seas relates to piracy etc)

The World areas and their campaign themes were...

South America - Arms Running
South America - Stealth Down
Panama Canal - Canal Crisis
Central America - Recapture Town
Alaska - Bio Reasearch
Eastern Europe - United Nations Convoy
The Middle East - Escort
The Middle East - Oil Dispute
South East Asia - Chemical Warfare
South China Seas - Piracy

[edit] Gameplay

A typical campaign consists of 4 or 5 missions. Each mission has a primary objective that must be completed to successfully complete the mission, there are other targets in each missions such as tanks and SAM sites but these are only used to help the player boost their score. The primary target is usually a major structure like an enemy base or a bridge.

Usually the player is equipped with a standard set of weapon, 16 Missiles, 76 Rockets and a machine gun with unlimited ammo. On some special missions the rockets are replaced by a weapon that is critical to the success of that particular mission, such as a runway cratering system when the primary objective is to destroy an airbase or a bomb when destruction of a bridge is the primary objective.

The control system for Thunderhawk for was fairly unique for the platforms supporting a mouse. It used the mouse for basic control, plus some keyboard input for rarely used commands. Moving the mouse would tilt the helicopter in the specified direction, and make it start moving in that direction. Pressing the left mouse button fires weapons. When the right mouse button was held, moving the mouse up and down changed altitude, while side to side yawed the helicopter side to side.