Steel Talons
From Sega Retro
Steel Talons | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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System(s): Sega Mega Drive | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: Tengen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Developer: Polygames | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distributor: Domark (EU) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Original system(s): Arcade boards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher(s) of original games: Atari Games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Developer(s) of original games: Atari Games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genre: Simulation[1], Shooting[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number of players: 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Steel Talons (スティールタロンズ) is a helicopter combat game originally released in arcades by Atari Games. It was later brought to the Sega Mega Drive.
Sega also distributed the arcade version in Japan.
Contents
Gameplay
Steel Talons is an early 3D shoot-'em-up, in which players pilot a helicopter tasked with destroying a certain number of enemies on the map (combat missions) or enemy helicopters (head to head). As an arcade game (as opposed to contemporaries such as LHX Attack Chopper) the controls are greatly simplifed, and while a "real heli flight" option exists to bring more lifelike helicopter physics into play, by default the player can pick a height and expect to always remain at a fixed position above the ground.
fires missiles,
fires the cannon, and
adjusts the height in Z. All of the weapons in the game automatically lock on to enemies if in short range.
Versions
Steel Talons was designed for much more powerful hardware than any home system available in 1991/1992, and so compromises were made for every platform the game was ported to; the Mega Drive, Super NES and Atari Lynx (with an Atari Falcon030 version appearing later in 1995). No home versions match the arcade game's performance, screen resolution or polygon count.
While the Mega Drive renders a true 3D world (versus the occaisonal simple polygon on a 2D gradient seen on the SNES), its version of Steel Talons was critically panned at release for its very low frame rates, often to the point of being unplayable. Conversely the Lynx version, designed for a much weaker handheld system, is a more accurate port with a smoother frame rate, and the Super NES, while looking very different to the arcade, also avoids many of the huge performance dips.
In complicated scenes, it is not uncommon to see the Mega Drive version drop below 5FPS.
Magazine articles
- Main article: Steel Talons/Magazine articles.
Promotional material
also published in:
- Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #41: "December 1992" (1992-xx-xx)[6]
- Game Informer (US) #8: "January/February 1993" (199x-xx-xx)[7]
- Electronic Games (1992-1995) (US) #5: "February 1993" (1993-01-12)[8]
- Sega Visions (US) #11: "February/March 1993" (199x-xx-xx)[9]
Physical scans
Sega Retro Average | ||||||
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55 | |
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Based on 17 reviews |
Technical information
ROM dump status
System | Hash | Size | Build Date | Source | Comments | |||||||||
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✔ |
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512kB | 1992-07 | Cartridge (US/EU) | ||||||||||
✔ |
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512kB | 1993-06 | Cartridge (JP) | ||||||||||
? |
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512kB | 1992-07 | Page |
References
- ↑ File:SteelTalons MD KR Box.jpg
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://sega.jp/history/hard/megadrive/software_l.html (Wayback Machine: 2020-07-02 23:21)
- ↑ Sega Arcade History, Enterbrain, page 107
- ↑ Beep! MegaDrive, "July 1993" (JP; 1993-06-08), page 147
- ↑ Sega Force, "February 1993" (UK; 1993-01-14), page 83
- ↑ Electronic Gaming Monthly, "December 1992" (US; 1992-xx-xx), page 99
- ↑ Game Informer, "January/February 1993" (US; 199x-xx-xx), page 68
- ↑ Electronic Games (1992-1995), "February 1993" (US; 1993-01-12), page 34
- ↑ Sega Visions, "February/March 1993" (US; 199x-xx-xx), page 65
- ↑ Beep! MegaDrive, "July 1993" (JP; 1993-06-08), page 20 (22)
- ↑ Sega Saturn Magazine, "September 1995" (JP; 1995-08-08), page 85 (87)
- ↑ GamesMaster, "February 1993" (UK; 1993-01-21), page 50/51 (50)
- ↑ Mega, "January 1993" (UK; 1992-12-17), page 52/53 (52)
- ↑ Mean Machines Sega, "January 1993" (UK; 1992-12-28), page 74-76 (74)
- ↑ Sega Force, "February 1993" (UK; 1993-01-14), page 82/83 (82)
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