A playthrough of Acclaim's 1987 shoot 'em up for the NES, Tiger-Heli.
The game doesn't have an ending, so I played two complete loops in this video before finally forcing a game over in the third. The second loop begins at 14:10, the third at 24:58.
Tiger-Heli was the 1985 break-out hit for Toaplan, a Japanese arcade luminary whose influence helped shape the evolution of the vertically-scrolling shooter genre through the late 80s and early 90s.
Similar to Capcom's 1942, Tiger-Heli is a war-themed shooter that builds on the template established in 1984 by Namco's Xevious. You pilot an attack chopper over the ocean, forests, military installations, and civilian neighborhoods, fighting off waves of air and ground forces with missiles and bombs. Certain ground targets will release power-ups when hit, like escort choppers (that'll provide extra firepower and can be configured to shoot vertically or horizontally) and extra bombs (that'll destroy any weak enemies and bullets caught in the blast).
The NES version is a faithful adaptation of the arcade game. The level layouts, enemy formations, and attack patterns are the same, and the graphics are similar. The level of detail was lowered and the playfield was vertically cropped, but it clearly resembles the original.
On the flip side, the zoomed in view makes the screen feel cramped, the vehicles and projectiles don't move as smoothly, the sprite flicker is extremely distracting, and the poorly arranged soundtrack is harsh and intrusive.
It's not a terrible translation - a real shocker since it was made by Micronics, the folks behind thoroughly rancid efforts like https://youtu.be/a7YFJXuPPKQ and https://youtu.be/ysh16tya7nY - but it came off as an embarrassingly dated relic when https://youtu.be/rs7rr5e7GrM was released in North America just a month later.
Micronics was also responsible for the 1990 NES adapation of Tiger Heli's direct sequel, https://youtu.be/eBOP6G_YFr8. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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