The Classic Arcade and Console Era (1972-1989) - Cobra Command (a.k.a. Thunder Storm)
A laserdisc game, a side-scrolling shoot ‘em up and a Choplifter-style game all share the same name? But only two of the three are worth playing.
RELEASE DATE: 1984 (Arcade Laserdisc), 1988 (Arcade and NES shoot ‘em ups)
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Data East
BEST VERSIONS: Arcade (Laserdisc) and Arcade
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
Leave it to Data East to confuse everyone by naming not two, but three entirely different action games about helicopters Cobra Command. While the version released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 is probably the one North American gamers are most familiar with, it’s also the one I recommend the least because it’s just a Choplifter clone that’s neither as fun nor as polished as Dan Gorlin’s 1982 Apple II classic.
The arcade versions, on the other hand, are both equally worth experiencing, though the 1984 laserdisc edition from Japan (also known as Thunder Storm LX-3 and Thunder Storm FX and bearing no relation to the incredible Technosoft shooter series known as Thunder Force) certainly has a wow factor with its fluid hand-drawn animation by the legendary Japanese studio Toei Animation. The 1988 version is a more conventional horizontal side-scroller that feels similar to Capcom’s later 1989 hit Area 88 / U.N. Squadron, but with helicopters and occasional forays into caverns to fight weird bosses.
The original Cobra Command is a laserdisc game that plays similarly to the electromechanical scrolling map arcade games of the late 1970s and early 1980s. You play from the perspective of a helicopter pilot and move a cursor around to shoot enemies onscreen with your guns and missiles. The game begins with an epic showdown in New York City as you battle enemy choppers around the Statue of Liberty, and you soon head into Manhattan, careening between buildings and dodging skyscrapers. Because this is a laserdisc game, you have a narrow window in which to destroy enemies and to make turns that are shouted at you by the game’s narrator (who speaks English, despite the fact that this title was intended for Japanese players). If you succeed, the enemies explode and the action continues. If you fail, the game cuts to a game over screen.
Since Toei animated Cobra Command, it’s unsurprising that the 20 minutes of animation are lush and imaginative, eventually taking the gameplay through canyons, over oceans, above forests, around ruins and into underground bases. What surprised me was the hand-drawn explosions, which add considerable excitement to the game as you watch aircraft disintegrate and giant pillars of fire erupt from installations you’ve just taken down. The action trades realism for making you feel like you’re in a military-themed anime. The only downside is that the experience is the same every time; once you’ve seen Cobra Command through to the end, some of the excitement is lost because the game’s designed to be linear rather than offering branching paths or randomized progression. Even so, it’s breathtaking, and certainly one of my favorites of the 1980s Japanese laserdisc games.
The later Cobra Command arcade game is a loose adaptation that is entirely different mechanically, presenting its action in a 2D sidescrolling game where you play as a helicopter equipped with forward machine guns and missiles that fall ahead diagonally like bombs. The game has a gentle difficulty curve at first, providing you with easy opportunities to upgrade your guns, speed and missiles at the start of every level and every time you die. It doesn’t take much to fully upgrade your chopper, and once you do, you can fire an impressive cone of damage in front of you that covers a pretty good chunk of the screen, particularly if you just spam the attack buttons. You can also occasionally find a charging laser weapon which is utilized by holding down the gun attack button, and it’s devastating to many bosses and ground units if you can hold onto it long enough to use it.
Curiously, the game went through several versions between its Japanese release and the final 4th and 5th revision released to the rest of the world, and there are some pretty significant differences in the game’s graphics between them, shuffling around backgrounds and replacing some of the sprites. The later versions also change the scenario to have the game mostly taking place in Iran against modern military forces, though as the game progresses away from fighting in the forest and over the water and into the desert and mountains, it becomes clear that the enemy isn’t Iran, but some sort of super force with future technology that allows for giant bases, laser turrets, hovering aircraft and armored mechanical suits. There are also stages with strange juxtapositions between ancient and modern settings, such as a night mission where you’re flying over ancient ruins with a cityscape in the background and lighting flashing in the sky. Perhaps my favorite of all of the stages has you delve into a temple where you see strange pictures of two-headed giants in the background as you battle both mechanical suits and strange flying mutants.
One of the most interesting things about this version of Cobra Command is that the action occasionally shifts to underground stages where you have to dodge obstacles and fight stationary turrets on the floors and ceilings. These stages not only provide some much-needed variety, but also add in some challenge since so many of the other levels can be conquered simply by powering up and shooting an endless barrage forward to stop enemies as they enter the screen. The final stage is also intriguing because it allows you to turn around and fly towards the left of the screen as you fight a humongous flying fortress that has guns on all sides and a weak spot between its engines on the back.
Beyond the moderate level of difficulty (which is nice for a genre that can be so punishing!), Cobra Command also offers a somewhat unique continue system where you can select in which of the 15 stages (called scenes) you’d like to restart. While I can’t imagine most players would want to go backwards in a game based on forward progression, it’s nice to have the option, and getting through an easier early stage with all of your weapons intact does make the later stages more manageable. While each stage has a boss of some sort, many of the early bosses go down quickly if you have the laser and fully-upgraded guns and missiles, and most stages only require a couple of minutes to blast through.
Given the quality of both of the arcade games, it’s hard to understand why the NES adaptation, which is by far the most familiar of the three to modern games, is so poor by comparison. Sadly, playing the arcade versions is only really accomplished via emulation since neither has been re-released in a compilation or miniconsole. Emulation with a game ROM (or laserdisc image in the case of the 1984 game) and an emulator like Daphne for the original and MAME or Retroarch for the later game is your best bet. For the 1988 Cobra Command, the 5th revision is the core game from which the other ROMsets are based, but it is worth trying the earlier versions to see how the game evolved.
As Our Series Continues…
It’s time to move on to console and arcade gaming in the 1970s and 80s, and we’re going to cover it all with an exploration into hundreds more games you’ve probably never played but definitely ought to check out. Come for amazingly great early 1980s games like Warlords, Super Locomotive, Shark! Shark!, Acrobatic Dog-Fight, Mysterious Stones: Dr. John’s Adventure and Intrepid and stick around for mid-to-late 1980s greats like Peter Pack-Rat, Penguin-kun Wars, Momoko 120%, UFO Robot Dangar, Wonder Momo, Raimais, Last Alert, The Legend of Valkyrie and the arcade version of Twin Eagle: Revenge Joe’s Brother, complete with a rockin’ soundtrack with wonderfully inscrutable lyrics.
If you’ve never heard of any of those games, you’re in for a treat as we explore them one by one. And If those games are all old hat to you, don’t worry; they’re just the tip of the iceberg for what we’ll be discussing!
If you missed my series on the hundreds of 1980s PC games you probably never played, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 2. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!