On My Nintendo DS: Super Airwolf for the Sega Genesis

Did you know that there's a replica of the helicopter from AIRWOLF on sale at eBay? Anyways, there was also an Airwolf game released on the Sega Genesis. Interestingly, it was released as Crossfire in the United States, while elsewhere it was known as Super Airwolf.

Also interesting was the gameplay. At first I thought the game was a straight-forward shmup ala 1942, where you shoot down planes, tanks and enemy emplacements with your souped-up helicopter. The subsequent land-based commando mission took me by surprise. It was a break from the norm but at the same time, devilishly hard to play.

I took a video of that sequence:



So what are the differences between Crossfire and Super Airwolf? Both are similar gameplay wise but try to spot the differences between the games with the videos I've taken below:





This write-up wouldn't have been possible without jEnesisDS, a Sega Genesis emulator for the Nintendo DS, and the R4DS, a flashcart used to run homebrew applications on the Nintendo DS.

The Problem With Running Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Games on the Nintendo DS

As the title mentions, there is a problem when it comes to running Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games on the Nintendo DS: the emulators have not found a way to produce sound! It's a rather quiet experience playing Sonic the Hedgehog but even though the lack of sound is a shame, the game runs really fast on a particular emulator: jEnesisDS 0.5.

I've tested two Genesis/Mega Drive emulators, PicoDS and jEnesisDS 0.5. Both have their similarities but only one had the larger set of advantages. Both emulators run without sound and while both CAN run whatever I've thrown at them, jEnesisDS is faster,smoother and has a way nicer user interface. Kind of like comparing a European supermodel to one of those local race queens and the supermodel has some brains to boot.

I'll be writting a more in-depth review in the future but for the moment, get jEnesisDS 0.5 at DCEmu. Registration is required, but free.