Airwolf 2

Copyright : Hit Pak | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

After the rather nasty attempt by Elite at making a video game out of this usually action packed but always predictable TV series another software house jumped on the same wagon and decided to create a sequel.

As you will see from the review there have been a number of changes made to the style of game and most of which are for the better but does that make the game good, bad or ugly? well there?s only one way to find out....read on.

Graphics

Airwolf 2 is getting a little bit closer to how the first outing by Elite Systems Ltd should have been and crosses over to arcade style shoot-em-up action rather than boring people to death with nasty controls and rock hard maps.

The graphics on show in Airwolf 2 aren?t overly bad but they certainly aren?t as colourful as Elite Systems Ltd version and wouldn?t look much out of place on a 48K ZX Spectrum. There isn?t any depth to Airwolf or any of the oncoming enemies as they all just look like roughly outlined drawings moving along set paths, the game never really changes or produces anything new other than the occasional gun ship and the odd change in colours (see screen grab 2). We always thought the TV series was set on earth but by looking at the screen grabs below you?ll see that Airwolf 2 looks like it?s either set in space or it?s a very dark day.

Sound

Sound wise, well it?s better than the original in the fact that there is no background music looping over and over again and the overall activeness of the sound system has been improved. You?ll now hear the kind of explosions you would expect from this type of game, fans of the theme tune might be let down however as Airwolf 2 doesn?t come complete with that luxury - we guess it had something to do with licensing at the time.

Gameplay

Now the most important factor, gameplay! well it does play quite well despite the underdone graphics as Airwolf is now much easier to control, no longer do you have to keep hovering over blocks by constantly pushing up and any direction as this is now done for you (the way it should be). The difficulty isn?t overly bad with 3 lives to play the game with and not a lot of nasty enemies coming at you from all directions, people of all ages should be able to have some fun out of this game and it?s one that die hard Shoot-em-up fans will complete within 30 minutes or so.

All in all Airwolf 2 is better than the sequel but it still could have been done better.