Metal Hawk is a multi-directional shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1988 only in Japan. It runs on Namco System 2 hardware, and is the third game from Namco to allow scores not ending in "0" (the first two were Hopping Mappy and Bakutotsu Kijuutei, which were released in 1986 and earlier in the year respectively).
The player must take control of a helicopter (the eponymous "Metal Hawk") and fight various enemies based on the land, in the air and in the sea in order to score a certain amount of points for each area within a set time limit. The game employs a perspective similar to that of Namco's own Assault (which also runs on their System 2 hardware), in which Metal Hawk is kept in the centre of the screen while the playfield rotates around it. At the start of each area, Metal Hawk will fly up to its highest altitude - but instead of rising up from the ground, the playfield appears to come down away from it; and when an area is cleared, Metal Hawk will once again fly up to its highest altitude and off the top of the screen. These methods of entering and leaving again reinforce the player-centric approach of the game.
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Pictures
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Title screen.
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Standard arcade cabinet.
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Sitdown arcade cabinet.
