Helicopter

Hi All,

I can trigger the police car support, but I've also triggered a helicopter support at least once, but I'm never sure how I did that! How am I triggering this?

Gedgehog wrote:Hi All,

I can trigger the police car support, but I've also triggered a helicopter support at least once, but I'm never sure how I did that! How am I triggering this?

It all depends on the stage and how it is designed. You have no control over it. Some stages bring a car, others a helicopter and others, even nothing at all (leaving you only with Electra's, Rudra's, Shiva's, Ashe's and Mr.X police call option to only function). Same results. The only thing you can control, is the car's ammo, which depends on which player you are playing as; P1 has rocket launcher, P2 has minigun attack.

P.S. Don't count on Mr.X calling the police, though!

I understand how that feature works when I played the game.

Security, you said that in some stages, you would only use one vehicle (car or helicopter depending on the area) and a few places would use both (i.e. a helicopter is only used if near the beginning of a right-to-left scrolling stage when starting at the left-hand side of a stage, otherwise a car would be used instead if you move further) — best used in outdoor-type scenes like cities.  However, nothing would happen in some stages (particularly in the indoor-type scenes such as a warehouse or a bar) except when certain characters are used.

I checked in the option menu of the original Streets of Rage on the Genesis and it described that feature as a SPECIAL ATTACK but I found that confusing (as it should have been labeled POLICE CALL).

The police call is actually, a "police call", only for good characters and Roo. Most police calls in indoor areas do nothing at all. Rest of the characters do another big attack, instead, by using "police call"...

Ash hits on the enemies (ewww)
Electra throws thunderbolts
Rudra throws flames
Mr. X jokes and laughs (but in mods this does nothing)
Shiva gets enhanced speed for a minute

And stuff like that. But the above players' "police calls", work everywhere, inside or outside.

So, if you want a "police call" indoors, learn to play Ash/Elle/Rudra/Shiva!

Also, if you deactivate "police call" in the menu options, the manual mentions something about getting another special attack to replace it.

I knew that by now, Security.  The five characters you mentioned have their own unique special powers when the POLICE CALL button is pressed (check the Control Options to find the key linked to the action).  Oddly enough, it worked when playing as Mr. X but it should not be used because it does nothing as it wastes your police specials (particularly in mods), thus ruining your chance of getting a 10,000-point bonus at the end of a stage.  Shiva's "police call" however doubles his speed but only for a limited time.  The other characters are self-explanatory.

Interestingly, Roo (or Victy, if the Japanese version's character names are active in the cheats section of the in-game shop) carries out the same procedure as the protagonists except that he blows a whistle first before the police call comes into effect (compare that to another game which did exactly the same thing, namely Konami's Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure on the Genesis).  I also found out one of the files used by Roo in Streets of Rage Remake contained a sound effect that was actually taken directly from TTA: BHT.

Answering the first question. In some scenes (or actually, any scene that has police special enabled), if a character calls the police in the first 512 pixel size area of the map, you'll get a helicopter raid instead of a police car raid, this is because there's no background design behind the scenes like in the original SOR1 stages, which were basically looped. 

For those interested, the effect could be emulated somehow if using some design tricks in SORmaker, but won't be exactly the same way. You still would have the visual scroll at the beginning of the scene.