#29 - Air Wolf

The size of this picture accurately represents the length, width, and depth of this game's suckiness.



This screenshot is actually from the Atari game, which looks more fun than the NES version.

This game is based on the Eighties television show of the same name. It is so bad, I feel like my critical words won't do its crappiness justice. There is absolutely no purpose, no rhyme or reason to this game. It is atrocious, and honestly, I don't want to write about it... but for the sake of my beloved reader (that's you, G-Money), I will anyway.

Your goal as a suicidal helicopter with a heart of gold 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 want 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 companies to push off this trash onto consumers, charging fifty-sixty bucks for a game that contains no gameplay? This is the real outrage, not pixelated dismembered limbs. Anyways, to the game. A guy that looks like my friend's dad gives you a mission to end all missions: go blow stuff up. As some cranky old guy from a cliche' action movie would say, "You called me out of retirement for this?!" Not me, actually, but Acclaim "Entertainment," the publishers of all things crappy and Turok... wait, that's a little redundant. ZING TUROK!

Just because it's possible to progress in this game doesn't mean you should, though. I can't imagine trudging through thirty missions worth of levels like the first one because, let's face it, I could be playing Lolo instead. With so many other horrible NES games, it's just another one on the pile; a common shrimp in an ocean of uninspired gray cartridges.

F