Heli Heroes

malice) “Die you terrorist dogs!”  Explode an enemy building: (with sarcasm) “I’m so sorry.”  Get hit by a projectile: (breathlessly) “I’ve gotta keep her up.”  From the start of each mission where he reads the objectives to the closing catchphrase of each mission (usually something to do with having a beer) he spews verbal diarrhea.  Aside from the voice acting, HH has some good sound – the title track is especially good.  Sound effects are great and never lag behind the action – and there’s lots of action.

By their very nature, scrolling arcade action shooters are repetitive and HH is neither more nor less repetitive than any other.  The developers try to spice things up by including different mission objectives across the 20 missions, like chasing a “boss” character or wiping out radar stations, but you probably won’t notice the variation since no matter what’s happening you’re always moving forward (with the occasional path choice) and blasting wave after wave of enemy units.

Power-ups are liberally available.  You’re primary weapon is the machine gun.  Although it’s handy, it sure doesn’t beat the various missile and laser power-ups of your secondary weapons.  Switching secondary weapons is easy to do on the fly and you’ll need to as they have varying effectiveness against ground and air targets.  There are also a few “one shot” items like the traditional Smart Bomb that blasts all enemies on-screen and Cloak, which makes you invisible to all enemies.  One “power-up” flips the entire screen upside down and reverses your controls.  Hitting one of these by accident is easy to do when there are lots of things exploding and you’re distracted by a sad “I’m on fire!”

Graphically, HH is nice to watch.  The action is all 3D and smooth (even on my aging PIII 500) and the weapon effects are used to good effect.  Even with two players I didn’t encounter any problems.  Environments are varied but it doesn’t matter too much as they all play pretty much the same.  There are three viewing angles but once again they don’t affect the play at all – it’s just a matter of preference.  The graphics aren’t bleeding edge but they keep the action rolling, just as any good old school shooter should.

Control is solid, but I recommend using a gamepad as the keyboard just doesn’t feel right.

Okay, I’m going to say it one more time, Heli Heroes is a repetitive shooter with decent graphics, horrible/humorous voice acting, good sound, and strangely addicting game play.  It’s possible I have an addictive personality, but even with all the downsides I couldn’t stop playing.  Maybe I’m just showing my old school roots but I had quite a bit of fun with Heli Heroes – it’s easy to just drop in and fly a mission or two to let off some steam.  It doesn’t do anything original or even that note worthy, but it’s still fun.  (There’s a demo available and it’s worth a download.)

- Omni