Airwolf

The mental trauma this game put me through was such that decades later I still had occasional fever-dreams of trying to control that bloody helicopter.
Play it for long and you too will be crying your eyes out like Stringfellow Hawke on his cello.

Controlling the helicopter is done so bad it doesn't even make me want to play more than a few minutes.

A very poor adaptation of a successful and popular tv show,a pretty basic rendition of the tv shows theme music the title screen and ingame sound effects are pretty dire,overall the sounds make little use of the capabilities of the sid chip,the graphics are blocky and quite primitive but one of my biggest gripes about this is that the helicopter sprite is to big and makes it difficult to move around and solve the puzzles without colliding a lot,this makes the game to difficult.

I got a tape version of this when I was a child. I loved the cover, I loved the music. The game itself is unfortunately extremely lame, not worth playing nowadays. Too frustrating

Whas obsessed with Airwolf as a kid, tried so hard to love this game, but failed. Nice graphics, great tune, horrible gameplay and absurd difficulty! Shame!!!

Nice graphics & music from the TV show, draw in your curiosity to explore the caves, but as a kid in the 80's, I found the difficulty way too hard. Now I try it again as a more skilled adult and conclude the difficulty level is crazy. It could have been a fantastic game if someone actually play tested it & adjusted the difficulty to a reasonable level. It has such a small game map, that to compensate, they simply made it crazy hard. Very dishonest, instead of making a larger game with less difficulty, to make it last longer.

One has to say that the game far exceeds the quality of many other Elite games released around the same time, although the relationship with the licence is a threadbare one. The design is probably influenced by the game, Zeppelin, but takes the challenge to new lengths that require memorisation of the map, quick reactions and a whole heap of patience. Graphics are functional and the controls really quite precise. The rendition of the theme is very short however which is a shame. A gradual increase in difficulty would have made the game a much more appealing prospect.

It's an interesting challenge, but just not a particularly appealing one, or one that you would be expecting from a TV show about a state-of-the-art military helicopter. It copies Fort Apocalypse to a degree, and has much smoother scrolling. Rather than play as a simple arcade challenge, there are traps and switches that need to be understood in order to rescue the people. In addition to this, you have to search the caves to locate where the scientists are once you rescue the last one - and they could be anywhere! A fair bit of trial and error is involved to learn how the whole cave system works.
It's a well coded and polished game, just not the most exciting thing to play, or something that has wide appeal because of it's brutal difficulty in places. The music is nice initially, but gets repetitive real quickly

Played for Hours back then to rescue the first Hostage.... After i finally managed it i noticed that this game is just one big Level with different Hostage locations. Never played it again... This was way to difficult just to cover up that there isn't much more to explore than this one big cave...

Zzap gave this a Sizzler for a reason. One of the best games to overcome impatience. So much to learn even after you are a competent pilot. Finding ways to retain shields, positioning of the tips of your blades, timing your move by the second...Airwolf demands your best gaming skills.

This game has an insane level of difficulty, it starts hard and stays this way. You are
Stringfellow Hawk pilot of the high tech combat helicopter Airwolf and your silly name ain't going to prevent you from blowing up every 30secs. I wonder if setting the scenario in a claustrophobic cavern was the right decision. Controlling Airwolf is a struggle and having hazards inches away doesn't help. Comparing this to Choplifter is obvious that more open areas should have been used. On the plus side the sprites are quite nice and colourful, and the catchy theme music from the movie is pretty cool.
Not a terrible game but just too hard.

Just for it's fantastic music, I can not give this game a bad vote. It gives me a lot of nostalgic feelings, when I still play it sometimes and I like this. Sure, it's frustrating at some points and sometimes it can be a little bit annoying too, but overall, it's still a good game for me, in which, with a little practice, you can progress and clearly improve. Not one of the best games on the C64 of course, but a good one.

I loved the tv show so I love this game. Things are very simple when you're an 8 year old.

Ball breakingly hard and not really a good game to be honest.

It takes a lot of patience to progress in this game, it's a "try and die" type of game, which is not exactly my cup of tea; also, controls are too skiddy and require too much precision; it's almost more fun to purposefully bounce your helicopter (hey, it's not a bouncing ball, it's a HELICOPTER!!) against the walls than it is to play the game.
Also, granting only one life makes the game too unrewarding.

Tough and unforgiving but interesting and far from impossible. The problem was did I really actually enjoy beating it all that much? The very fact that I persevered enough to beat it and didn't just walk away does say something I suppose. A strange use of the license but Elite should be congratulated for doing something inventive and unexpected. Graphics were good and the theme tune was at least recognisable despite being quickly nerve grating. A 6 seems fair. Never thought it was Zzap Sizzler material though.

It should have been called kamikaze Airwolf pilot when I was playing. I was really good at getting killed.

Didn't enjoy this. Incredibly frustrating and not one iota as cool as the TV show from whence it came. The title tune grated after about 10 mins.
Shame, as that show was one of the best things on TV as a kid.

A mediocre game with a frustrating difficulty level. Decent music, though.

5 / 10

Music is cool for 3 min, than after 5 gets annoying. Thanks god it can be turned off. The graphics looks cool, effects fine, but the controll... To bad the controll kills the game. With help, (cheat / map) it's fun for a while but I would suggest Fort Apocalypse rather than this. I love the heli it looks ultra cool compare to Fort A. But when you try to fly around... Get some xanax.

Tested verison: Remember +2
Tested on: C128 NTSC
- the bottom vibrates
- the music to fast, not synced for NTSC.

Yes, this was a hard game. It rewarded you with persistence and experimentation. Crashing your chopper aside, half the trouble was figuring out where the scientists were, how to efficiently navigate the tunnels to get to them, and how the booby traps worked.
Once you'd sussed it, it was just a matter of putting your skills to the test.... And once you'd found all all five scientists... Do it all over again! *sad trombone*

Kind of plays like a Fort Apocalypse clone, but much harder. Hard to control and you just bounce off everything until you die. Ok graphics, good music.

After playing this game, I have a lot more respect for Stringfellow Hawke's skill as a pilot. On the TV show, they make it look fairly easy to get out of the cave. But I guess they condensed it for timing purposes, otherwise it would take the whole 60 minutes of the show to leave the lair!

Not a bad game but sadly let down by the fact it was hard as nails to play.

Very good music, average game !!

It's funny when you see how poorly this game is rated here, compared to how it scored in Zzap! , and all the people who wrote in after the review saying "Your review was spot-on! I went ought and bought Airwolf and it's great! "

Not that bad, not that good! Hard as nails game, I didnt find the urge to go back and play this one again.

Strange game. Got it in a box with some other Elite games. None of the games in that box were good. I tried this a lot, but it was hard!

A good game.
But ruined by hard game play!

Too hard, too unrelated to the series, too unrelated to anything. The shields were pointless because you could easily die in one hit. Getting outside the first room could be hit and miss sometimes. I wouldn't even recommend it to a fan of the TV show... Go find a better helicopter game, instead.

I found the cigar shaped car on the title screen more interesting than anything else about the game. Why is it there? What is it? It always baffled me. (I realise it's at the very bottom of the map, too... )

Had not much in common with the TV series except for a low quality (very simple) version of its title music. And in the series, the helicopter actually does leave the cavern...

Way to hard, but a lot of fun.

Too hard too play in my opinion..

Won this game in a Zzap compo (issue 43) when it came out on the encore label. You could see it had potential but was just too damn hard. I didn't think the graphics were all that great. Pity, as I really loved the TV series

I was fond of the TV series and the generic (ta... Tadatada... ) so I so fond of the game too. Very hard, but the music was such a drug!

I wanted to love this game but it didn't give me much to love. The music was good although it slowed down from time to time and the joystick control is overly sensitive. Overall, the game is too hard. If your idea of fun is crashing a helicopter into walls and getting knocked out of the air by red balloons and flying saucers, this is the game for you. If not, give it a pass.

Disapointed when I got this. Think I only managed to pick up a couple of the scientists / hostages before boucning around the scenary and towards destruction. Very hard. And yes the music was too slow.

This was very near impossible! Far too claustrophobic for me! If they made the play area a bit larger it would have probably been quite playable. As it stands its just unplayable.

This was not that bad. I was a fan of the series.

Hate this. Get the Spectrum version!

It doesn't have anything to do with Airwolf, but I had some great times with it.

Shit. Amstrad version was MILES better. Good tune though.

Why would you fly a helicopter into a series of narrow underground tunnels??!! Stupid concept.
Cramped, claustrophobic & awkward gameplay. Sorry guys, what were you thinking?? Play Choplifter instead! 4/10

Difficult game where you control this super-duper-choplifter from the well-known seriers with the same name, Airwolf. The music is nice, although a bit too slow and gets boring after some minutes. The grapic is o. K. 6/10.

Good but tricky!

Crap

Great TV series with Jan Michael Vincent in typical steely, unemotional form. Ernest Borgnine's character was pretty annoying though.
This is a good game with tricky controls and requiring good puzzle solving skills to stay in the air. Above all, I have to mention the tune which is awesome.
Tunes from 70's/80's TV shows are still very much in demand today in the form of mobile phone ring tones. Why? Because they stood the test of time and nothing shown on TV these days will ever compare to the old stuff!
Retro mania is alive and well in this game.

Not great, too hard. Even the Speccy version was better. Great music though!

Hard? This game? Beaten it within 5 minutes!

I keep crashing again and again and again... Stringfellow hawk never had this trouble.

Bloody hard!!! , lost interest after being killed almost instantly for the 50th successive time.

Good game, hard though, very unforgiving. Finished it eventually.

Not for the short tempered. Along with bounder this is a candidate for the 'most annoying game ever' award.

JESUS! Just got this to load off an old c90 tape cover'd in dust. Its just as anoying as I can remember it being. This is a lot harder than the Spectrum version and that was hard. The music gets really tedious after you've heard it 100 times. If the control wasn't so sensative, this game would have been more captivating. Still a classic though!

Quite average game based on the TV-serie from the 80's. The game is pretty lame actually, the only thing real cool is the Airwolf title-tune. Cool. (Later on re-done by JCH and used in some IKARI intros... Puuuuure class YEAH !!!)

Quite a good challenging hard game really. I never could get far so thats y I kept coming back to this game all the time.

I liked this game although it was very difficult. I'll admit though that I preferred the Spectrum version, although that was just as hard, if not harder...

Jesus, I hated this game. Kept crashing straight out. This was one of the first games I copied from a pal. Does no one remember using those eighties tape to tape machines and copying each others' games?

I really enjoyed this game as a kid. Yes it was hard to play but I played it enough times to get pretty far. I never did beat it, and trying it again it is way too hard. But it was fun back in the day...

Nice graphic, but too difficult...

Nice aesthetics; shame about the game. (Although I made some progress using CCS64's Freeze function... )

As a child I found this game really fascinating. Yes, it was too difficult but it was fun to play it with friends and compete who stays alive longest.

Cool game but too difficult. The chopter was destroyed so fast, when you made a little mistake. And no continue...

Now I remember when I first played. Grafx were breathtaking for that time but to be honest I am also another one find it too difficult to play. One of the magazines, I couldn't remember its name, gave the full map of the game. Just for this game, I bought a CRACK Cartridge and flied around, followed the map. It was joy.

Was too difficult to be a long term good game

I hate this game. Music is OK, but the gameplay is just worthless. This game has nothing to do with the original series (except the music)

Good music and decent graphics but I found it too difficult to persist. For this type of game I preffered the ancient but excellent Fort Apocalypse

I don't think it was the difficulty that demanded so much from me rather than the patience it obviously took to get your helicopter in the right spot. The sometimes-unclear, "what the hell is THAT?" environment doesn't help either. Still like the game, though...

Nice graphics but too hard to play.
Check out the trained version.

A good game but very difficult.