"Get ready to kill your grandpa Inadvertently."

Yoshiki Okamoto's Time Pilot, released in 1982, was a totally badass game. There's no denying it. It was the definitive chronocide shooter, and although many games would try to mimic it's success (i.e. Sega's Future Spy, SNK's Time Soldiers, and Strata's Time Killers), none would ever prove to be as well designed or fun as Konami's original.

It's amazing how well the original Time Pilot formula has held up. The basic objective of the game is to pilot your Time-Ignoring fighter-craft through 5 chronological eras, destroying a set number of aircraft from that time period, which at last prompts the era's boss to appear. Blowing away this extra difficult enemy will propel your craft through time, where the cycle begins anew, albeit in a later, more difficult time period. Your craft basically sits smack in the middle of the screen at all times, with the player being able to rotate the craft in a myriad of directions, which ultimately decides how the screen moves and in which direction your craft fires.

You can easily tell which time period you currently inhabit, because each time period sports unique craft, as well as a unique color scheme. As you progress through time, the enemies become more technologically advanced, as you battle biplanes during WWI, sealed-cockpit craft in WWII, helicopters in Vietnam, Jets in... that big war we meant to have during the 80's but never did, and... well, UFOS in the year 2000. Hey, you couldn't expect Konami to predict the future with complete accuracy, could you? Enemy craft generally fire bullets at you, and in certain eras you'll find the enemy lobbing bombs, and maybe even homing missiles at you.

Either way, the scoring system is utter simplicity, which helps give the game that addictive charm that so many games today lack. Shooting down the stock aircraft of the current era will nab you a blasé 100 points. However, occasionally, a formation of aircraft will show up, and downing all the craft in the group will score you a cool 2000 points. Occasionally, you'll also come across little guys falling from the sky on parachutes, and snatching one of these precarious dudes will nab you a cumulative 1000 pts. times the number of parachuters you've picked up since entering the time period. So, while getting just one of these parachuters will grant only 1000 points, getting 2 will grant you 2000 points, getting 3 will grant you 3000 points, and so on. However, getting killed will reset your cumulative gain to 0, so if you were getting into the 7000 range with the parachuters, you'll find yourself back at the start, getting only 1000 pts. per parachuter. Starting on the second stage, larger aircraft will begin to show up. Killing these chums will give you a cool 1500 points on the spot. Lastly, the boss of each era will net you 3000 points after being exterminated. With all these scoring opportunities, there are a lot of ways to approach the game as far as getting high scores. You can take the olde fashioned route, going for extreme distance, without any alternate techniques. However, after looping the game a few times, the game begins to become pretty grisly as far as difficulty goes, so sheer survival can prove difficult. You can also go for the alternate route, either by sitting around and grabbing as many parachutes in a row, or by targeting only the formations of ships.

Graphically, Time Pilot is not a bad looking game. Your own craft has an obscene amount of animation, relatively speaking, and the enemies are all pretty well drawn. The location of the game is always up in the sky, with some nice parallax scrolling clouds over a single color background, which changes according to the era. In the 5th and final era you must go through before looping, you'll find yourself in space flying about asteroids; an effect elegantly accomplished using the same background scheme as the previous eras. The title screen features the eloquently stated argument ''Please deposit coin and try this game.'' Why don't arcade games today feature such simply stated demands?

Soundwise, the game starts with a great little tune that totally kicks ass. I mean, this must be one of the best tunes in arcade history. If Bayou Billy suddenly started playing Time Pilot, you can bet that his first words after hearing the tune would be ''This tune's… really gettin' me riled now!'' The rest of the game features some dead awesome sound effects, from the signature noise of the approach of enemy formations, to the coolo noise that emanates when a parachuter is picked up.

Time Pilot is one of those immortal shooters that will reside in the annals of gaming history. It will never, ever die, as long as there are those gamers with enough taste to remember them. On a side note, you can find this game on A) Konami's MSX Ultra Pack for the Saturn, and B) on Konami's GBA nostalgia-fest Arcade Advance. However you play this game, make sure you respect it, and enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/02, Updated 07/03/02