Dai Senpu (1993)

Daisenpū is a vertical shooter by Nec Interchannel and conversion of the arcade game of the same name (also known as Twin Hawk) originally released by Toaplan in 1989. In the year 193X, country R is overwhelmed by hostile enemy forces and the small oasis town 'S' is the main target of the attack. A handful of survivors escape to the jungle and start working on a counter attack - but they are soon discovered and are now running out of time, and they must launch the Daisenpū squadron before it is fully operational. The player takes control of a fighter plane and must fly deep into enemy territory, attack ground targets such as tanks, turrets and warships (the game curiously doesn't feature any flying enemies and no obstacles to fly into, beside enemy bullets). The plane starts equipped with a limited double-shot machine gun that can be slowly upgraded throughout the game by collecting power-pods left behind by small trucks. But the originality of Daisenpū lies elsewhere - the player can call a small squadron of six planes and have them fly in formation, shooting anything in sight and crashing into an enemy unit when defeated. The squadron can also commit a Kamikaze attack at anytime and destroy ground units, or combine to release a devastative bomb-attack. Finally, Daisenpū offers an unusual feature - levels do not pause between them and reveal instead a continuous flow of undisturbed shooting action.

• Release Date: January 14, 1993