Thunderhawk 2 Firestorm - SEGA Saturn - Intro, Mission Gameplay from 4 Campaigns [UHD 4K]
51Core Design's follow up to their SEGA Mega CD original title was an early and impressive Saturn game from the studio who would go on to develop Tomb Raider in 1996. Thunderhawk 2 renamed Thunderstrike 2 in North America, really improves on the original with the 3D visuals adding a depth and height to the gameplay the Mega CD one slightly lacked. The original is regarded as one of the better games on the Mega CD and this Saturn follow up is possibly one of if not the best combat flight game on the Saturn.
The game manages to hold a fairly decent 30fps with the odd amount of slowdown here and there. As with the original, this is a fast paced action arcade title with you taking control of a Thunderhawk helicopter, even if the one in the game and on the box art looks more like an Apache helicopter. No doubt the name change is to avoid license issues as the real Thunderhawk is a version of the Blackhawk helicopter, which looks rather different.
The game has eight campaigns and each has several missions taking place in different parts of the world and at different times of the day. Giving you a great variety of missions in the games, from protecting allied bases, blowing up enemy airports, attacking trains and conveys, saving the high seas from pirates. While it may not be the largest games and can be finished in a couple of hours. The difficulty early on means you will likely fail quite a few missions to begin with. Once you get used to the controls and the mission structure you should be able to beat most missions fairly easily.
A nice touch is the fact you can do the campaign missions in any order, but only the brave do the south China Seas first. It may not be the most in depth title and lack elements like fuel seen in Electronics Arts Strike series, but the 3D graphics were very good for the time. Music and sound effect help make you feel like a copter pilot as is the voice acting. The choice of camera views is great, but the cockpit view does make seeing things a little tricky. The machine gun really is the best weapons in the game, with the homing missiles being great for air units, most of the other weapons are only worth using in required missions and the rockets are pretty useless with no clear tracking or firing line and weak damage.
Video shows the opening mission from four different campaigns, South America Arms Running, South America Stealth Down, South China Seas Piracy and Middle East Recapture Territory. The last one has some rather annoying friendly helicopters, that have a mind of their own. In the practice run they went to the objective quickly not so in the record.
Thunderhawk 2 is by far the best game on the Saturn where you pilot a attack chopper, Black Fire and Black Dawn are far weaker games. The Saturn port of Soviet Strike isn't ideally either with rather a lot of added slowdown. Thunderhawk 2 was developed for SEGA Saturn and later ported to both PC and the PlayStation 1. There are actually four games in the series the original Amiga title from 1991/1992 the 1993 SEGA Mega CD games, this one on Saturn and finally a somewhat disappointing forth game on PlayStation 2 Thunderhawk Operation Phoenix. A modern update on this third outing would no doubt work and play very well
Also known as: サンダーホーク II (Japan) Thunderhawk 2: Firestorm (Germany) Firestorm: Thunderhawk 2 (Rest of Europe) Thunderstrike 2 (North America)
Release: 1995
Developer: Core Design
Publisher: Core Design (Europe) U.S. Gold (North America) Victor Entertainment (Japan)
Format: Sega Saturn (SS) / セガサターン / 세가새턴
Thunderhawk 2 Firestorm is also available PS1 and MS-DOS PC from 1995, however there has never been a re-release of the game and the rights are now owned by Square Enix.
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Intro and outros included in this video, let us know what you think. Template from Panzoid by Magnus DZN, edited by Riven, intro music is Chipper Doodle and outro music is Kawaii! by bad snacks.
Chipper Doodle - Electronic Light by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100854
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Footage is captured directly from original hardware in this case a modded PAL Sega Saturn console at 60Hz via RGB Scart. Using an Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro and a open source scan converter (OSSC). Upscaled to UHD 4K to improve the video bit rate, watch in HD or UHD for best video playback on YouTube.
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