The Helicopter Boss Strikes Back: A Review of the Tough-Ass Action Game Cleared Hot [Early Access]

For years, helicopters in games were minor irritants, the only thing they could do was explode spectacularly. The Strike series rectified this shortcoming by allowing players to feel like they were the helicopter boss. Cleared Hot cleverly took inspiration from the classics and returned the player to the cockpit of a mighty machine.

From the very beginning, the player is thrown into the thick of combat. A brave helicopter pilot named Travis was deftly dispatching bad guys when his comrade-in-arms ran into trouble. His superiors gave the order to retreat, but Travis disobeyed and rushed to the rescue. Everything would have gone smoothly if not for the intervention of a fighter jet—one successful attack cost the hero his military career.

As a civilian, Travis didn’t give up on his dream and saved up for a new helicopter. His new job consisted of hauling trash and chickens using a rope. He would have been stuck with this dirty work, hadn’t some bad guys attacked a comrade who desperately needed air support. A simple scuffle in a junkyard became a ticket to new adventures and a chance to feel like a hero again.

At the beginning, the game isn’t even generous with ammunition—you’ll have to use your wits and physics to fight the bad guys. A handy rope lets you lift and drop various objects. This mechanic opens up a lot of room for creativity:

• Soldiers can be picked up and dropped from a height;

• Containers, stones or objects of suitable size are convenient for dropping on the head, or using as a kind of hammer;

• It is possible to pick up a truck and throw out passengers with fatal consequences.

You can change the altitude if you want. If you go lower, you can shred enemies with your propellers—reminiscent of the epic scene from the movie “28 Weeks Later.”

A little later, Travis will be given the opportunity to use a machine gun—a weapon with infinite ammo. It’s great for taking out infantry, but you’ll have to put up with overheating. A secondary weapon is missiles, which are effective against armored vehicles.

Most missions involve finding and destroying specific targets, aided by a convenient map and minimap. Enemy bases are guarded by turrets and soldiers stationed in towers. Outside the bases, scouting teams are stationed, guarding useful items such as missiles and health.

A well-thought-out destruction system makes base assaults especially spectacular. Few buildings will survive a hail of bullets and missiles—in 99% of cases, they’ll collapse in spectacular explosions. As a bonus, destroying towers will cause guards standing on them to fall to their deaths, and if someone was hiding in a hangar, the concrete chunks that hit them will inflict additional damage. And that’s not all—machine gun impacts leave marks on the buildings!

Capturing landing pads will increase your chances of survival—they’re used for repairs during landing. A trusty zipline will help you retrieve not only missiles, first aid kits, and a shield that protects you from fatal damage, but also hostages. If you deliver the hostages to the extraction point, they’ll share resources as a reward.

Convoy protection missions are less common. You must escort a ground vehicle and protect it from waves of enemies. If an obstacle gets in the way, you either dismantle it or move the vehicle itself. A brilliant solution by the developers is that you can use first aid kits to repair allied vehicles—this makes mistakes less fatal, allowing you to correct your own mistakes.

The enemies themselves aren’t particularly intelligent, but they can be dangerous—a couple of missiles is enough to take down the initial helicopter. Sometimes the enemy AI is so weak that their vehicles get stuck en route to their target, which greatly simplifies defense. I’d also like to see the infantry stand out more—they can be hard to spot against the background.

Completing missions rewards players with cash, which can be used to purchase and use new helicopter models. They vary in speed, maneuverability, survivability, mounted guns and missiles, and passenger compartment capacity. Players can play as anything from a powerful flying tank to a nimble iron bird.

You can also purchase various types of machine guns and missiles, which perform well against enemies with varying armor levels. However, you’ll have to shell out for each vehicle—weapons don’t transfer from one “bird” to another. The cherry on top is the customization of the helicopter that comes with the installation—upgrades allow you to track your progress.

Diagnosis

Cleared Hot’s simplicity of concept and execution is a boon, complemented by the high-quality attention to detail. This isn’t a meticulous simulator where you need a real pilot’s license to pilot a virtual helicopter. It’s a fun game, reminiscent of the ’00s, with easy-to-use controls and spectacular explosions. And even though the game is in Early Access, the only real complaint I can offer is a performance hitch in some areas.

The first chapter is currently available, and it takes about three hours to complete at a leisurely pace. Hopefully, the remaining chapters will be released as soon as possible, so we can thoroughly test all the helicopters and their mounted guns.