Arcade Archives: Metal Hawk (PS4|5 - Switch)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Arcade Archives: Metal Hawk (PS4|5 - Switch)

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DANGER ZONE (PART XXIV)
ARCADE STYLED HELICOPTER BATTLEFIELD


Namco keeps bringing some interesting titles to Hamster's Arcade Archives library.
This time is the helicopter simulator/shmup Metal Hawk.



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Welcome to the Jungle! We've got fun and games!

From what we've saw, Metal Hawk is basically Namco's answer to Sega's Thunder Blade since the arcade cabinet was a motion seat game, but the gameplay is the main difference over its Sega competitor. While Thunder Blade was had a "fixed" rail course just like After Burner II along with the kill count during each one of the levels. Metal Hawk is more of an "Open World" where the objective is to achieve the specific amount of points required to clear the stage within a time limit or else you'll lose a life and the timer resets giving you another chance to clear the level. Getting the mission done requires you to literally destroy everything on sight: Oil Tanks, Oil Platforms, Buildings, Cannons, Radar Facilities, they're worth points or VP, which stands for "Victory Points". While the buildings grant you a few points, it is the planes, jeeps and tanks which grant you the most of them. Although the game lacks of a radar like in Assault, there's a pop-up arrow that will indicate you where are the most valuable enemies. To do the task, you're allowed to take the enemy on varying altitudes. But keep in mind, Air-to-Ground weaponry only takes effect if the helicopter is on the 300m range or below. That's right, you only have two weapons: Air-to-Air Vulcan and Air-to-Ground Missiles. Learning the 300m rule is important for the success of your mission, but also you have to pay a lot of attention from the enemy attacks, since you're fixed on the center of the screen like in Assault, this also eases the enemy's aim, especially for the Anti-Air weaponry. You have also to pay attention to what I call "Drunk Pilots" because most of the deaths involving enemy aircraft are because they crash at you rather than shooting you. You can elude the Drunk Pilots by climbing and/or descending by using the speed lever which acts as the altitude control while the control stick is the main movement of your helicopter. Unlike most shmups where you move left or right, moving to the sides rotate the helicopter while up or down moves you forward or backwards. One minor detail is that the Air-to-Ground weapons lack of a sight to know where they'll hit (think Xevious), so you have to do eyeball calculated bombing just like in Dragon Spirit and Dragon Saber. While dying means to start back right where you were shot down. Continuing the game will send you back to the beginning of the level, but in a series of twists you'll be able to keep your score, but the main problem will be that you'll continue the game with even less lives than the default game starting stock. ¿Why that decision? I don't know.



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Each second could be a difference between life or death.

After clearing a mission, you are allowed to select the next stage. To select the desired stage you have to let pass 1 second in the timer in order to the game to change the assigned level. Quite an odd decision, so you have to think wisely where do you want to go. The game will send you from the usual enemy takedown to battles against aircraft carriers and aerial fortresses which will require to destroy their weaponry, efficiently incapacitating the target. It's kinda disappointing that the big vessel doesn't go boom like the rest of your enemies, but the goal is to meet the expectations rather than go around and do full widespread destruction. It is worth of mention that the game makes an effort on day-night cycles throughout your gameplay, as you progress in the game, the following level will be on evening and then night. A simple palette swap but works quite well.

With all the incredible gameplay features, it was odd that Namco never ported this to consoles. Technically it was obviously impossible for the SNES, Genesis and PC Engine to fully recreate the arcade visual effects, sounds and gameplay, even for powerful computers like the Sharp X68000 and FM Towns Marty, so we've never saw a console port on the early 90's. Not even the PS1-PS2 Namco Museum compilations were able to take the job. Basically, we had to wait 34 years until Hamster decided to bring this one home as part of the Arcade Archives series. The original mode carries both Japanese and International versions where the regional differences are the text as both games have japanese voiceovers for the Operator. We have the 3 lives-no-continues Hi-Score Mode and the 5 minute Time Attack-like Caravan Mode with the respective trophies for our console accounts.



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Saturday Night Assault.

In terms of graphics, this game takes all the advantages learned from Assault and exploits them even further. Being the sprite scaling and altitude-distance related proportions the most notorious and the pixel rotation that adds the sense of three dimensionality to the whole in-game world rather than having the helicopter moving, an aspect inherited from Assault.
The sound quality is as good as all their previous System II games, with almost CD-like quality on sound clarity and digitized percussion drumming with the characteristic 80's Action-Adventure beats of the decade courtesy of Shinji Hosoe who worked on Assault, and it sounds indeed like an expansion of Assault's soundtrack. Maya Okamoto provided the voice of the operator/AWACS that provides commentary during levels, replacing the annoying arrow sound from Assault.



METAL CURIOSITIES

- The Arcade Archives release is the first and only home port of the game.
- Unlike many other Namco arcade games, Metal Hawk was released on North America by Namco itself rather than relying on Atari Games.
- There was plans for a Sega CD port, but it was suddenly cancelled. Clearly it was way too much for the Genesis CD add-on.
- The use of red and black colors with a bird for the emblem served as inspiration for the emblem of the Federal Republic of Estovakia from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.




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He's a damn hero!

Arcade Archives: Metal Hawk brings home an incredible open-world helicopter shmup that masters the concept of altitude switching combat with incredible graphics and sounds along with the trademark features of Hamster's collection of arcade games. To sum things up. When it comes to vertical helicopter shmups, don't waste your time with the crappy D-Force, Metal Hawk is the helicopter game you're looking for. It is definitely worthy of your time and money since this game breaks with the traditional aspects of your oh-so-common vintage arcade games.



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Glad to see the Lea Scale with a positive result.
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