Sidewinder (響尾蛇 in Chinese), also known as Mission Cobra, is a shooter game developed by Joy Van.
Gameplay
The game's a very simple vertical shooter where the player controls the titular combat helicopter. The game is three levels long, with every level being set up the same way: a wave of fighter jets that don't touch the bottom of the screen, a wave that does, two patrol copters, a wave of weaker copters that slightly curve towards the player, a fast wave of divebombers, then finally a boss. Aside from enemy/level graphics, the only difference between each level are the bosses.
The player starts off slow and with a basic gun, but defeating enemies will yield power-ups that include various weapons and health power-ups. If the player collects the same gun continuously the firing speed will increase then afterwards the player's speed. Collecting another power-up will put their weapon at the first strength level of the new weapon (though speed-ups will stay around.) The player can still fight even if their fuel reaches zero, however if an attack that will bring the total to less than 0 connects the Sidewinder will explode and it's game over.
After clearing all three stages, the game loops and continues to do so until the player gets a game over. There's no ending or credits whatsoever.
Trivia
- The game's rushed, almost tech demo-like state could possibly be because another game's manual mentions a Journey to the West game that never got released; given the order the games were listed it's possibly this was hastily made to replace it.
- Mission Cobra's title doesn't animate the letters at all, with the logo always being visible. In Sidewinder's English release (by HES, Milmar and Sachen themselves) three bullet holes appear for a logo, and the Chinese release has a Chinese logo appear.
- The Milmar release, while being in NES format, can either be an English Sachen revision or a Chinese revision. It varies with each copy.