Action across different time zones, behind the scenes politics and enough loop-the-loops to make you dizzy. Yes welcome to the world of Time Pilot.

OK before we go any further I absolutely loved this game. I still play it today and if I might say so am still as ace at it as when I was 15 years old. I too you see can travel through time just like the Time Pilot.

Simply put the game places the player's jet fighter in the middle of the screen, by use of an 8-way joystick the player can move the jet in any direction on the screen. The aim being to shoot down as many enemy craft as possible and then time-warp to the next zone.

There are 5 different time-zones to blast through:
1910 - biplanes and airships
1940 - W.W.II fighters and bombers
1970 - helicopters
1982 - jet planes
2001 - UFO's

Time Pilot Splash Screen

The game was designed by Yoshika Okamoto...who?, well he went on to design Street Fighter, Final Fight, 1942 and Gyruss, good on anyone's CV you'll agree. The manufacturer for Time Pilot was Konami and the game was released in 1982. Yoshi San was asked to design a driving game, but this did not appeal to his shoot-em-up, beat-em-up tendencies so he ignored his bosses completely and instead started to design a game based around one of his own favourites, Bosconian. The influence of Bosconian is obvious in the style of movement and game play, but at the time Time Pilot seemed pretty unique.

When Yoshi's boss asked to see this great driving game that he had been assigned to do, he was shown Time Pilot instead. Well you can guess what happened. The boss went mad, until of course the game became a massive hit, when of course the boss took all the credit. Oh life's a bitch! Well disgruntled Yoshi buggered of to Capcom and thank god because there were many more games in his mind that he went on to create at Capcom, Gyruss & 1942 being Classics in their own right as well as the now famous Street Fighter.

Back to the game and away from behind the scene politics we find a thoroughly addictive and challenging game. Gamers fell into 2 groups, you either loved or hated the joystick control, but shooting definitely had a very satisfactory feel to it as enemy ships exploded in and around you. You had to destroy 56 enemy ships in order for the mother ship to appear, this was indicated by a decreasing gauge at the bottom of the screen.

The first time-zone encountered was 1910. Yes a strange year as W.W.I was in 1914 onwards so quite what battle you were caught up in is a mystery but what the hell. Barnstorming biplanes attack from all over the screen. Parachutists drift down through the clouds just begging to be saved for massive points junkies and finally a dirty great big Zeppelin to blow up to advance to the next zone.

Time Pilot Time Zone 1910

Zone 2 sees you re-materialize in 1940 slap bang in the middle of W.W.II. However America was not involved until 1941 if memory serves and those bombers do look a lot like B52's, but hey we are time traveling and things get screwed around right. American, Nazi, Japanese whatever they are shoot first, ask questions later. This stage is slightly harder as you would expect but you can still zip around the screen and have a good old shoot fest as the planes offer little resistance. The enemy planes shoot and drop bombs at you but nothing you can't handle. Formations offer bonuses of 2,000 points as in Zone 1. Bombers afford you 1,500 points.

Time Pilot Time Zone 1940

Having zapped the Nazis or whoever its through the time-portal again and smack bang into the middle of Vietnam in 1970. Helicopters with heat seeking missiles sees you do a different jig on screen to avoid being hit. The game gets harder from here onwards.

Time Pilot Time Zone 1970

Having dispatched the bad guys in Nam its forward through time to um.. 1982. Which war exactly.....? hell I don't know and in 1982 I didn't ask any questions either. Life was definitely simpler in the 1980's I'm sure you will agree. Wherever we are its jets just like ours we are up against this time and more homing missiles. A continual circular motion on the joystick worked best here and you can forget about hanging around collecting points, too hard.

Time Pilot Time Zone 1982

Mission completed and we zap into the future, well its the past now really, but it was the future then, back in the past if you see what I mean. Time travel is complicated don't you know. 2001 and we are fighting UFO's, obviously from space, as we now have an asteroid filled space backdrop to fight in, although we still seem to be in our 1982 jet fighter, presumably refitted for deep space. Anyway you blast the UFO's, blowup the mother ship for 3,000 points and back home in time for tea and Doctor Who on the TV.

Time Pilot Time Zone 2001

Tips & Tricks:
The enemy planes find it hardest to shoot you when you are moving in a diagonal direction! So fly diagonally...simple heh!

Concentrate on collecting the parachutists for maximum points. The first is worth 1,000 points and the value increases by 1,000 points until the maximum value of 5,000 points is reached. From that point on all parachutists are worth 5,000 points on that level.

Homing missiles can be lost by maneuvering them off the screen. Once off the edge of the screen they do not reappear.

On the 1940 stage NEVER EVER touch the fire button, eventually parachutists start appearing, try to collect them without firing a shot. If you can survive the fighters without shooting and collect the parachutes the stage will go on forever... points heaven.

Summary
Time Pilot was one of Konami's best, many home versions were made for the Atari 2600, the Colecovision and even today on the Playstation. I first played it in a Pizza Parlour at Gants Hill in Essex, we would go there on our bikes, leave them outside, order a pizza and fill Time Pilot with credits. Those days were truly some of my favourite from my childhood gaming days. Now of course the Pizza Parlour has turned into a Dominoes Pizza, just a another example of globalisation. The pizzas are crap and the games are gone. If I could have one wish it would be that I was the Time Pilot and I could zap back through some time-portal, back to 1982 and the Pizza Parlour, hitch my bike up and drop a credit or two in Time Pilot and waste a few more hours of my life.

Overall Classic Game Rating - 8.0

 

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