PrinceWatercress plays Air Rescue (Master System) - Part 1 of 2

Here's something interesting: a Europe-only Sega Master System game that isn't a licensed property.

Also, I had no idea that I had forgotten to post the blog entries for this and one other game as I was looking for longplays that hadn't been shown as intermissions or epilogues for Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko. This is getting remedied right now, and I wish this was an April Fool's joke.

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If you wanted to play a game on an earlier video game console where you pilot a plane and rescue people, this is the game for you. You'll be doing this for five stages, with the fifth being the most difficult of all. This one is a tad short

Also, while there is a Sega arcade game called Air Rescue, this one plays much differently.

Round 1: Dangerous Holiday

Hard is only slightly harder than Normal. You have slightly more people to rescue, and the maximum number of people you can carry in the plane is slightly lower.

When you start a round, you get a very quick look at the entire level, then you take control of the helicopter.

The Control Pad lets you move in eight directions, while Button 1 raises and lowers the ladder and Button 2 shoots your current weapon.. If you run into a wall or ceiling, you're going to crash and you're going to lose a life.

At the top of the screen is the amount of time you have left in the level followed by how many people you need to rescue and how many people are on board the helicopter. You can carry up to four people. (In Hard Mode, that number is three). If you run out of time, you will also lose a life.

For this one, a terrorist has sucked all the fun out of an amusement park, and you've got to rescue some stranded people while taking the guy out with whatever weapons you have.

To start, go past the rollercoaster and shoot the guy with the gun down from above with your shotgun (which is what you're equipped with at the start of the game). The shotgun goes downwards much like the missiles in Gradius, so you'll have to aim carefully. From here, you're free to use the ladder to pick up the people on the Ferris wheel. As for the person near the now-dead gunman, you can either use the ladder or you can land near them (which thankfully does not kill them) to pick them up. Once you reach the maximum capacity of four passengers, you can go all the way back to the hospital at the beginning of the level and drop them off before picking up more people.

Along the way, you'll see indestructible globes that move around in a zig-zag pattern while producing an electric shock around themselves. Stay away from them.

The narrow passage leading downward will put your patience to the test. If you run into the walls to the side even slightly, you will crash and lose a life. Your best bet is to tap the Control Pad gently to ensure that you don't make mistakes, as momentum is a thing in this game and you don't exactly stop on a dime. Thankfully - and perhaps forgivably - if you fly straight into the ground, you'll land no matter how fast you're going.

There are seven people to save on Normal (eight on Hard), and if you take more than the target number of people back to the landing point, you'll get bonus points for each rescue beyond the required amount along with your time bonus at the end of the level. You'll also get an extra life if you beat the round without dying.

Round 2: Fire Storm

A skyscraper has caught fire in the city. You'll have to get some people out of there while avoiding having things thrown at you. To make matters

By pressing Button 2 at the landing point where you can drop people off, you can switch weapons. Besides your shotgun, you have a machine gun,  a water bomb that puts out fires and is only used for one stage, and a stun bomb that stuns some enemies for a while.

Start by switching to the machine gun. That's the icon in the upper-left corer of the weapon select. Use this to take out the people throwing things out the window as well as the two planes above the building that are throwing down bombs. You'll want to get to the planes' level as quickly as possible, then shoot them down. From here, lower the ladder and make sure the people in the building can climb onto it. 

From here, select the water bomb. This is the symbol on the lower-left corner of the weapon select; the other two are the shotgun (upper-right) and the stun bomb (lower-right). The water bomb is only useful for this stage, and you can use it to put fires in the building out that would otherwise destroy your plane and cost you a life. It works like the shotgun, but it puts out fires.

Round 3: Count Down

Now a bomb has gone off in a plane, and there are a few terrorists out and about. Not fun.

Besides the globes of death (there's more than one now), there are missile launcher that shoots missiles straight up into the air. 

Switch to the shotgun and take out the guys on the plane. If you're in their line of sight, they will shoot at you, but thankfully you can tell which direction they're facing by looking at them. Be careful near the cockpit of the plane; there is a tank that will shoot at you if it is on the screen; thankfully, you can take it out from a distance with the shotgun. From there, you can park below the front of the Sega plane and pick up the people below. Once again, be careful; you don't have a lot of room to move.

Use the machine gun to take out the gunman on the air traffic controller; using the shotgun is too risky.

People can go through buildings; your plane cannot. Keep that in mind in case people are in front of buildings.