Play Thunderstrike Online

Thunderstrike came out in 1990 for MS-DOS, developed by Core Design. It was one of those early PC games that tried to push what a home computer could do with 3D visuals, back when that mostly meant flat-shaded polygons and a lot of imagination. You got it on a few floppy disks, and it felt like stepping into a very blocky, very dangerous future.

You pilot an attack helicopter through a series of missions to stop a global terrorist network. The main objective is to fly into hostile territory, destroy all primary targets like radar installations and missile silos, and make it back to your carrier alive. The signature mechanics are the low-altitude, terrain-hugging flight needed to avoid radar detection, the first-person cockpit view for targeting, and managing your limited payload of missiles and countermeasures. The pacing is tense and deliberate; rushing usually ends in a fiery crash. It feels like a careful, calculated dance of destruction where every successful mission is a hard-won victory.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".