When I was a kid, one of my favorite games on NES was Tiger-Heli. Looking back, it was a mediocre arcade conversion, but at the time I loved taking pot shots at tanks and buildings, and couldn't get enough of that stage one music. Clearly the developers at SEEP also have an affinity for Toaplan's early shoot-'em-up, because they recently launched the scrolling helicopter shooter Airborne Justice, which seems to be ripped straight from the NES.

As befitting its NES sensibilities, Airborne Justice tells a story that's simple, straightforward, over-the-top, and outdated. An armed terrorist group has taken over a civilian area in the Middle East. In order to defeat the enemy and liberate the city, the U.S. army sends in two advanced attack helicopters, operated by soldiers Rock and Stan, also known as Team Thunderflash.

Apart from a preamble laying out the conflict and a few static screens at the end of the campaign, there isn't much storytelling in Airborne Justice. It's a game more about arcade action than anything else.

Judged solely on its action, the game performs sufficiently. From a top-down perspective, you'll pilot your helicopter through five vertically-scrolling stages, shooting jets, helicopters, tanks, destroyers, turrets, and other enemies. The commands are fairly simple, but in an accessible, easy-to-understand way. You'll fire your main shot with the cross button; deliver missiles with the circle button; and, most interesting of all, deploy a screen-clearing bomb — the Thunderflash — after holding down the square button for several seconds. You can also pick up shields and weapon power-ups throughout each mission. It isn't revolutionary, but it works.

Regrettably, the stage layouts, enemy patterns, and boss battles that surround this moment-to-moment gameplay don't hold up their end of the bargain. While each stage has a different background (desert camp, city streets, ocean, etc.), they all function in the same way, with zero obstacles, elevation changes, or special set-pieces. And the enemy formations that occupy these zones don't seem to move with much rhyme or reason. At the very beginning of stage one — a time when a shmup should be introducing its rules and slowly ramping up the difficulty  — SEEP sends out a cluttered, clumsy deluge of circular enemies, as if someone spilled a bag of them off-screen. This really sets the tone for the rest of the game.

As for bosses, well, they're simply too easy. They move lethargically and send out large, slow-moving projectiles. Every time I reached an end-stage boss, I breathed a sigh of relief, because I knew the worst was behind me. That's not something you would expect in a shoot-'em-up.

Fortunately, the studio manages to moderate these issues by providing several different ways to experience the game. For starters, the main campaign is playable with two players in local co-op, which ups the entertainment factor. For another, once you beat the game, you'll unlock three additional modes: speed mode, which rushes through the five stages at high speed; remix mode, which offers rearranged levels and enemy patterns; and survival mode, an endless mode for only one player where the goal is to collect as many points as possible.

Remix mode is the best of the bunch. It mixes up stages and bosses and generally offers a much more challenging experience. I found myself returning to it several times after completing the campaign. Endless mode is also enjoyable for a time, although it fails to ratchet up the difficulty in relation to your progress. Around level 27, after fending off the same enemies and formations again and again, I quit out of boredom.

These extra modes make a big difference, especially because the main campaign is so brief. You'll need only 20 minutes to see the credits roll. It's painfully short, even by shmup standards.

In terms of graphics, Airborne Justice certainly looks the part of a mid-80s NES game. The majority of the game's assets come from a third-party shop, Alb_pixel Store, which is completely fair game, but also a little disappointing. As for the soundtrack, it comes from Phat Phrog Studios, a purveyor of royalty-free video game music. The percussion-heavy metal tunes are fine, if forgettable.

As someone who grew up with Tiger-Heli, not to mention titles like 1942 and Xevious, I really wanted to like Airborne Justice. And to a certain degree I did. The straightforward combat hits the spot, particularly with a friend along for the journey, and the ancillary modes aren't half-bad; one of them, remix mode, actually outshines the main adventure. That said, it's hard to overlook the general clumsiness of the game. Stages are generic, enemy patterns are sloppy, and boss battles are slow and undemanding. When these issues combine with the brevity of the campaign and those off-the-shelf audiovisual assets, it feels like SEED may have rushed this one to market.