Fire Blade

"Fire Blade" is a flight simulation video game released in 2002 by Kuju Entertainment. In the game, as part of the "Fire Blade" task force, you pilot a state-of-the-art combat helicopter that is tasked with counterterrorism operations as part of the game's storyline. The enemies in the game are the “United Eastern States,” which are suspected of establishing terrorist training camps and factories for weapons of mass destruction. The game resembles “ThunderHawk: Operation Phoenix” in many ways. In “Fire Blade,” however, the player must proceed with far less caution—unless on a covert mission—and generally faces a much larger number of enemies. The main element of the game is to aggressively pilot your combat helicopters against large, armored enemy formations and complete the main missions. These missions vary in their creativity—ranging from simply blowing up a bridge to supporting a special operations team in stopping a train by parking a truck across the tracks and preventing enemy troops from pushing it out of the way. A second element of the game is FPS-style sniping: When the player’s helicopter switches to “stealth mode,” the machine gun is used as a precision weapon to take out individual soldiers—allowing the player to eliminate enemy infantry much like in an FPS. Additional fuel and ammunition for the helicopter’s jet boosters, as well as heavier weapons, are obtained from destroyed enemy vehicles—rather than from the more conventional resupply stations familiar from games in the “Strike” series.