Hellfire (video game)

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This article is about a shooting game. For Diablo expansion pack, see Diablo: Hellfire.

Hellfire
Developer(s)	Toaplan
Publisher(s)	Seismic Software Inc.
Platform(s)	Arcade Sega Genesis PC-Engine
Release date	September 28, 1990
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Single player
Input methods	Game controller

Hellfire is a horizontally scrolling shooter, developed by Toaplan and released by Seismic Software Inc. in 1990. It was released both as an arcade cabinet and as a cartridge for the Sega Genesis.

[edit] Story

The story to Hellfire takes place in 2998, where man has reached a great point in galactic travel and colonization with the help of a peaceful society. However, a mysterious space matter known as Black Nebula appears and starts engulfing different stars before reaching man's latest colonized galaxy. It is eventually revealed that the force behind this matter is Super Mech, a mysterious robotic dictator from the farthest regions of space with the only intention to destroy any resistance that it and its massive space armada faces.

A Space Federation member known only as Captain Lancer decides to initiate a surprise attack against Super Mech by piloting the only available space fighter craft, the CNCS1, loaded with the strongest weapon available in the galaxy: The Hellfire

[edit] Game play

One of the major features that separated Hellfire out from other space shooters was the ability to fire in different directions by swapping the colour of your ship. With a press of the B button, the ship would cycle through the colours Pink, Yellow, Green and Blue. Pink allowed the ship to fire forwards in a horizontal direction, where yellow did the opposite and fired from the back of the ship also in a horizontal direction. Green allowed two guns to be fired at once, shooting above and below the ship vertically. Blue added two more to this, and fired 4 guns from each corner of the ship diagonally. This added a more tactical feature to the game, as in most areas a different colour is more suitable to use than others. More experienced players of the game can flick through the different colours rapidly, making complete effective use of the 4 different shot systems. No matter which colour you pick though, your ship will always be vulnerable from one direction or another.

Just like any good space shooter, there are many upgrades and powerups that can be found which also change your ships appearance upon collection. These powerups range from upgrading your fire power, creating a shield barrier that protects you from a single attack, spawning a small helper robot to attack your enemies and adding ammunition to your powerful laser cannon which is fired with C.