I bet the pigs will come before Strike series when it comes to getting back in the air. What started with Desert Attack In 1992 he was last seen with Nuclear Strike in 1997, unless you count 2006 EA Replay for PSP. If you even remember it.
This Strike games – especially Jungle Strike – this is one of my relaxation titles. I think it’s the constant hum of the helicopter blades combined with balmy memories that soothes my soul. I’d like to play this now.
The creators of the series AWOL are asking others to follow its example and create their own unique versions of their works. Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess is one of them and it is certainly a unique direction.
Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess (Computer)
Developer: Pizza Bear Games
Publisher: Pizza Bear Games
Released: June 21, 2024
Suggested retail price: $15.99
If I had to define what made me Strike series so memorable that it wouldn’t feature the action you’d expect from an isometric helicopter game. Instead, you had to be extremely careful taking on different objectives on each map. Resources like healing items, fuel, and ammo were insufficient and constrained. Flying around, shooting at everything, ended in your own burning wreckage soon after.
Mega helicopter isn’t it? It’s much more action-based. There’s a winch that you utilize to gather health, ammo, and other supplies, but there’s more than enough on hand to lay down a trail of destruction without slowing down. In that way, it’s more like Army Men: Air Assaultforgive me for cutting it deeper.
He does know this about himself though. You play as Jack Copter, who is chosen to pilot the titular Megacopter. He soon learns that this piece of military equipment is actually some kind of Aztech deity that craves blood. Luckily, this revelation gives Jack something to think about, but everyone around him seems to be really partial to blood, so whatever.
The crew is dealing with a Reptoid invasion. Maybe they’re using pizza to, I don’t know, enslave humanity or something. I’d say pizza is a pretty good vector for undermining humanity. I wouldn’t trust anyone who said they didn’t like it.
The gameplay is mostly about flying around and shooting things. Between missions, you can spend Pizza Bear Tokens and the sacrificial hearts you collect on upgrades. During the missions themselves, you can spend some time smashing crates to get more money. That’s it. Oh! You have a winch.
Not that I expected anything more. However Strike series has pulled a lot of extra benefits out of its maps, allowing you to achieve different goals. This is one of the biggest disappointments Mega helicopter: There isn’t a lot of variety in the missions. There are a few where you have to defend an object on the map, and they aren’t great. The most imaginative is a overdue mission where you deliver a pizza. Which, honestly, is pretty great.
There are bosses where everything is the most thrilling. There is a lot of aiming, dodging bullets, and knowing when to pick up supplies. There are no winches though, which I think is a wasted opportunity. For example, you can gouge out their eye or drop something on their face. Here it’s just throwing balls. Winches should be treasured.
Even if it’s not fancy, the basic gameplay is fun. There’s a certain satisfaction in figuring out the most effective way to eliminate certain enemy units, and the flight mechanics are well-tuned. However, it’s all pretty crude and unambitious.
The graphics are particularly inconsistent. Many of the close-ups aren’t great, with odd proportions and perspectives. Worse, there’s often a lot of blur during cutscenes, suggesting ponderous image compression.
It also attempts a retro style with a pixelated look, but doesn’t fully commit to it. In addition to the pixel resolution that’s everywhere, the resolution of many objects is generally so high that it loses the retro feel and instead just looks awkward.
On the other hand, he uses a neon, comic book aesthetic that works to a immense extent and almost gives Mega helicopter distinctive style. It is simply undermined by its inconsistencies, but it is not entirely lost.
However, the user interface is hideously ugly. It is completely functionalgiving you an uncomplicated readout of all your vital signs. It’s simply one of the most disgusting HUDs I can remember experiencing in recent memory. The colors, the opacity, the positioning of some of the windows, and the font all feel like placeholders that have never been replaced. It’s also another case of a high-resolution font being placed over pixelated graphics, which is one of my biggest obsessions.
Normally I wouldn’t dwell on the look of a game’s user interface, but whenever a text box overlapped another window, I had a strenuous time jumping over it.
The music is okay, but I could have sworn there was only one song in the mix. It’s a pretty basic synthetic cyberpunk sound, so it’s nice, but if it ever changed, I didn’t recognize it.
The dialogue is more consistent in quality, which I’m not sure was the goal. There’s a uninteresting quality to the story, where context is handed out with a sledgehammer. A particularly memorable example is when you have to explain why these military guys would sacrifice people to power their death helicopter. The explanation is simply, “Well, these guys are assholes anyway, so we probably shouldn’t feel bad about it.
The nature of the humor won’t be to everyone’s taste. But there’s an uninhibited hilarity to it. Even when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it manages to muster some nice exchanges. The characters aren’t deep, but they’re rich enough to get the jokes across.
The entire narrative lacks the benefit of an unfocused, sloppy approach, to the point where I often couldn’t tell what the grand conspiracy was or where events were headed. But considering Mega helicopter is a helicopter action game that doesn’t offer many opportunities for deep storytelling; the lack of a solid narrative isn’t much of a problem, but the comical dialogue is commendable.
At least it’s over before it gets dull. It could take 6-8 hours, which is probably how long it would take to play through Jungle Strike. There are four bosses in four locations and a decent amount of missions that move at a good pace. There’s not much reason to play again when it’s all said and done.
The mileage you will get Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess it will depend on how malnourished you are Strike depravity. It’s comical, but very brutal. It’s moderately, but not mind-blowingly comical. It’s fundamentally, but not unforgivably brutal. The former is certainly more significant than the latter. But it takes more consistency to give this bird its edge.
