Cleared Hot (2025)

There has been a genre of video games that seem to have just disappeared from the gaming landscape over the years, and it's one that I was always fond of. The high flying, blasting away of bad guys with missiles and machine guns while piloting military vehicles seems to have really been wiped out of games and just dried up. Luckily the developers from Not Knowing Corporation dusted off the forgotten genre and brought it back with vengeance.

Cleared Hot sets you in the seat of military Helicopter pilot Travis as he gets gunned down in the middle of a mission while going AWOL to help a stranded friend. Years later Travis is a guy down on his luck and does some odd jobs to become the owner of a beat up old simple helicopter doing odd jobs for his town. Quickly things get heated and Travis finds himself a one man army against forces he uncovers and takes them head on.

The plot itself isn't too complicated, feels a bit too "convenient" and slapped together, with a dash of believability, but giving into the suspension of disbelief, and not taking it too seriously is the only way forward. The game’s story is solely there to facilitate the incredibly fun missions that make the feel like it dropped right out of the mid 90’s. Clearly taking inspiration from Jungle Strike and Desert Strike, this new helicopter on a mission to destroy gameplay is exactly what the gaming world needs, and brings classic genres back with new settings and gameplay.

The control of the Chopper and the weapons all feel perfect, the helicopter does have a bit of a learning curve with its maneuvering and shooting, but it felt simple and intuitive enough even on a controller. The left stick controls the direction and turning of the chopper and the right stick controls the crosshair for the guns and missiles. The heli can also fly higher into the air or lower to the ground which makes for some fun enemy engagement in the game.

During missions, I was tasked with several odd jobs and most of them required taking out enemy bases and transporting some materials back to home base. Other missions were “Stand Your Ground” fair with protecting a base, and being on the defensive. While a few missions required a more linear path of exploration and then a couple escort missions to top it all off. While I didn't have too much trouble with most of them, the escort mission at the beginning of the game really dragged on and I had to retry it several times. It was cool that I could accomplish it several ways, like going out ahead of everything,” clear it all out and then wait for the scripted ambushes, but the fragility of the convoy was really the issue.

Each level has a clear bonus, racking up money, and even throughout the levels little money pick ups are strewn off the beaten paths for a tiny bit of exploration. All that money is eventually used to purchase upgrades. Everything from better mini guns to heavy mussels and even bigger and better choppers. I did what I normally do, and saved up my money for the best chopper money can buy. It ended up being a double edged sword, as it took an insane amount of damage, but was a bit harder and slower to control. But it got me through the second half of the game just fine.

Cleared Hot also ends with not only a big blockbuster setpiece, but a cliffhanger as well, signifying this is only the beginning, capped off by an end credits that say “Thanks for playing Chapter 1”, which made me thoroughly excited! I loved every moment of the game and it made me feel like I was back in my childhood living room, playing Jungle Strike on my Sega Genesis again. It's the perfect blend of a nostalgic genre, but updated to make it feel fresh and new. Legendary publisher MicroProse did the right thing by picking up the publishing rights and grabbing this game. It's a fantastic, fun, explosive game that deserves to be lifted high up in the indie space.