Also, be sure to check out Top Gun – Firestorm Advance.

Blades of Thunder is a 3D action game about controlling a helicopter during military missions. The story revolves around defeating a terrorist organization called The Solar Martyrs targetting oil refineries in the Middle East. During gameplay the helicopter is shown using a behind view. It has a pseudo 3D environment and it is one of the first games to employ voxel technology on the GBA.

The helicopter can be steered freely combining strafing with changing the altitude for evasive maneuvers. There are separate controls to move the crosshairs. The main action usually revolves around taking out units in the air, on the ground or at sea, but there are also escorting tasks or protecting allied vehicles and buildings. Three types of environments are used with snowy areas, deserts and a generic European setting. In the bottom right a radar shows enemy units.

Enemies also use radars as vehicles and these can be taken out to draw less attention. Other parts of the hud display remaining lives, the amount of health, the remaining ammo for the unguided Hydra rockets and lock-on Homing Missiles (the regular machine gun has infinite ammo) and the total score. Later levels introduce power-ups to provide additional damage or the ability to fire multiple rockets in one shot.

Health and ammo are replenished by flying over pick-up stations.  There are ten levels with primary and secondary objectives and each one starts with a short briefing. There are also bosses to defeat. There are three difficulty levels and a password system is used. At the end of a mission a total mission score is calculated based on the amount of units destroyed, the amount of secondary objectives completed and bonuses.