Metal Hawk - Arcade (1998)

This looks very promising and, in some ways, it would live up to that promise if you had the proper controls. You really do need the pictured sitck and throttle or it's going to be ever so slightly awkward. It's not as fun in practice, though. While it looks great, it wears off its charm in a hurry with repetitive, boring gameplay and a very limited ability to move or do much of anything unique. The height controls don't really help the playing experience, either. It feels like it's incredibly easy to be shot down since you just have to be near something, and often when you're flying low, you won't even see where shots are coming from. If an arcade operator was nice enough to grant an extra life per quarter and you have a bit of practice time, I'm sure the game gets better. Really can't beat the original controls, though.