I must confess, it was tempting to spend my entire “retro” evening playing more Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition because it’s technically not breaking any rules, but after making it through some exhaustingly tough levels, I felt like I needed a bit of a break! And so it was off to the “retro room” upstairs with me, to bust out something on a piece of real hardware.

I quickly settled on LHX Attack Chopper for Sega Mega Drive, a recent acquisition that I’ve long been curious about. There was a surprising number of polygonal flight sims on the Mega Drive — mostly distributed by Electronic Arts through their “EA Air Force” brand — and while I was never expecting them to match up to equivalent sims on home computers, I’ve always wanted to give them a go.

After trying LHX Attack Chopper for a bit this evening, I’m keen to pick up the others if I can find them for a reasonable price.

LHX Attack Chopper purports to be a helicopter simulation, but given that it came out in the early ’90s on a 16-bit home console that really wasn’t built for 3D, one should temper one’s expectations with regard to overall realism and accuracy somewhat. I’ve never played the original PC version so I can’t comment on if that feels any more realistic, but the Mega Drive version is absolutely erring very heavily on the arcadey side of things, feeling more like Atari’s Steel Talons than MicroProse’s Gunship.

That’s no bad thing, I hasten to add; given the limited control setup available to Mega Drive players, it makes complete sense to simplify things as much as possible — even with those simplifications in place, LHX Attack Chopper still plays best if you have two controllers to hand, and makes use of the Start button as a “shift” function that allows one button to do multiple things.

The nice thing about LHX Attack Chopper being distinctly arcadey is that it’s very pick-up-and-play. Getting in the air is very simple indeed — assuming you have read the manual and know that you need to hold Start and push up on the D-pad to ascend — and so is landing, though the manual does take great pains to explain the art of “autorotation” for an emergency landing should your helicopter be buggered beyond all recognition on its return to base.

The game presents you with a semi-randomised series of missions. There are a finite number of these and it is possible to “beat” the game, but given the lack of save function you’ll need to sit down for a protracted play session to achieve this. There is a password system to pick up where you left off, but it doesn’t save your overall score and career statistics, so if you want to get the most out of the game, you’ll probably want to devote an afternoon to it.

The missions are nicely varied rather than all being search-and-destroy missions. Sometimes you’ll have to blow up a static target; sometimes you’ll have to find a moving target somewhere along their route; sometimes you’ll have to rescue downed pilots or deliver airdrops; sometimes you’ll have to engage in some air-to-air combat.

All of them place a strong emphasis on stealth; it’s recommended you fly about 125-150 feet above the ground to stay below enemy radar — although you can ignore this and pop up to say hello if you so desire, scrambling all the enemy squadrons in the area in the process. As you fly through the mission area, you’ll encounter numerous targets of opportunity, and you can either leave these be or blast them for a little extra credit.

It seems to mostly be in your interests to blast them, since each of them are trying to get a radar lock on you, and many of them will report your position to nearby airbases if they track you for long enough. Plus, of course, anything with suitable weaponry will try its best to shoot you down.

Getting hit and damaged is, I feel, probably one of the highlights of LHX Attack Chopper because it suddenly introduces some interesting new gameplay elements you have to deal with. With various systems being knocked out upon damage, you’ll have to find alternative means of achieving your objectives if possible; it’s even possible to be hit by a stray bullet through the windshield, which means you need to make a beeline for the nearest friendly airbase before you bleed out in your cockpit. And no-one wants that.

On one mission I flew, my HUD was taken out, requiring me to rely more heavily on the map for navigation. On another, my main multi-function display was destroyed, meaning I had to identify targets visually from up close. On another still, my main rotor took damage, causing the whole cockpit to judder up and down in flight in a rather unsettling manner — naturally, this was the one mission where I had to pick up a passenger.

On the lower difficulty levels, LHX Attack Chopper feels quite easy. I bumped it up to Medium for the missions I played this evening, and it seemed to strike quite a nice balance. It was rare to get through a mission without taking damage, but it never felt like it was unfair — and I feel with getting to know the game a bit better, I might be able to better deal with incoming threats, either by evading their attacks more effectively or by appropriately prioritising targets to minimise the risk of detection.

While visually primitive, running at a frame rate that would make today’s PC gamers spontaneously combust and having a somewhat “vague” feel to the entire experience, LHX Attack Chopper appears to be enjoyable from first impressions. In true simulation form, I actually found playing to be an oddly chilled-out experience — this might sound strange when talking about a game where you blow things up, but remember there’s also a fair old chunk of just flying from one place to another listening to the soothing sound of your whirlybird’s rotor blades.

I’m glad I nabbed a copy, then; this is a fun game to have in my Mega Drive collection, and it definitely makes me want to pick up the other Mega Drive combat sims that are available. From EA, there’s F-22 Interceptor and F-117 Night Storm, and I learned today that Domark actually ported MiG-29 Fulcrum to Mega Drive, which was somewhat surprising to learn.

Then of course there’s a few tank and sub sims also… plenty to fiddle around with, and the nature of these games means that they’re unlikely to get a modern rerelease any time soon, so I may as well try and score them for my “real hardware” Mega Drive collection! I suspect they’re not in particularly high demand, after all…

---

More about LHX Attack Chopper

---

Want more Pete? Check my personal blog I’m Not Doctor Who, and my YouTube channel ThisIsPete. If you enjoy what you read here, please consider buying me a coffee.

Did you know you can subscribe to MoeGamer as a newsletter and get new posts delivered right to you? Just pop your email address in below and subscribe for free. Your address will not be used for anything else.

---