Developed and published by Sega in 1987
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Sega's Thunder Blade was released in 1987, the same year as After Burner. Whereas the latter put the player in control of a super-sonic fighter jet, the former offered up a slightly slower-paced, yet equally frenetic experience as pilot of an attack helicopter. As with their other top-line arcade releases, Sega released Thunder Blade in a number of configurations, including a sit-down cabinet with moving seat and authentic flight control stick with throttle.
Having dropped a coin into the slot, the game begins with a brief tutorial period that allows the player a brief moment to familiarise him/herself with the controls before embarking on the mission proper.
The player's helicopter is armed with both cannon and air-to-ground missiles, each fired by separate button. The cannon can be fired indefinitely but has a much smaller impact radius, whereas missiles have a bigger area of effect and have a cool-down timer before they can be fired again.
Thunder Blade's gameplay is set across four different stages, each in different environments. The game begins in an urban cityscape with skyscrapers lining the streets, progressing through desert, jungle and industrial zones.
Each stage is divided into three distinct phases. The first of these is viewed from a top-down perspective where the player must destroy enemy tanks and other ground vehicles whilst avoiding choppers in the process of taking off and generally avoiding obstacles. In many ways, the section is reminiscent of vertical shoot 'em ups, although the player also has the ability to change altitude by pushing forwards and backwards on the joystick.
Once the first phase is complete, the perspective changes to a third-person camera flying behind the chopper in a section much more resembling After Burner. As before, the player must navigate a deadly corridor of buildings, trees and environmental obstacles whilst taking down enemy vehicles and aircraft.
Having succeeded in beating the second phase, the game returns to the top-down view where the player must now run the gauntlet against a frighteningly large boss. These range from a naval destroyer, bristling with flak cannons and SAM batteries, to a flying fortress armed to the teeth with rockets and futuristic phasers.
One of the major tactical benefits offered by attack choppers and gunships is their ability to hover, something that Sega introduced into the game also. The player has control of the throttle, affording them the ability to fly backwards during top-down sections and hover in place during the third-person stages. The point of this is giving the player more time to take out enemies on screen, making for safer passage through the level. Being an arcade game, the designers want to push the player forwards, so the game limits your use of 'reverse' to a few seconds at a time.
Based on Sega's X Board system, Thunder Blade features some excellent visuals for the time. Although not as fast as After Burner, the designers harnessed the power of the board to deliver some remarkably effective pseudo-3D environments. By stacking sprites in front and on top of each other and clever use of parallax scrolling, many objects appear to be three dimensional; the illusion only breaks down when the player gets so close to the objects that it's possible to see the sprite stacking in effect.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the game that spoil the fun somewhat.
Scenery in the third-person sections tends to disappear when it gets a certain distance from the player's position, although the game still registers the object as in front of the player. It's perfectly possible to accidentally strafe sideways into part of the scenery that has no longer been rendered to the screen, something that caused me severe frustration on more than one occasion.
Also, the player chopper sprite has a nasty habit of obscuring enemy projectiles when flying in a straight line. This forces you into flying around the screen just to see what is coming at you, but also increases your chances of flying into a building or other obstacle.
There's no denying that Thunder Blade is an excellent looking (and sounding) game, but I found it to be less enjoyable than it's plane-based sibling. There's also something undeniably cool about flying a fighter jet at ludicrous speeds that this game lacks - it's still a fun game, but After Burner remains the jewel in the crown of Sega's arcade classics.
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