Developed by Toaplan and first released into arcades in 1987, Flying Shark (aka Sky Shark in North America) is a challenging vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter with a military theme. You fly a biplane over jungle and sea and must blast your way through five increasingly more difficult levels.

You have two different weapons onboard your aircraft: a front-firing cannon that can be upgraded by collecting power-ups, and an area-effect bomb that damages anything caught in its blast area. The bomb is limited use, but you can collect more of them as you progress. If you lose a life you of course lose the upgrades on your front-firing weapon and must build them up again.

Flying Shark is a tough game at times – like many arcade-based shooters – but it looks and sounds good and plays very well.

A variety of conversions of Flying Shark, for home computers and consoles, were released in the late Eighties/early Nineties, to varying degrees of success. A sequel, called Fire Shark, was also released in 1989.

More: Flying Shark on Wikipedia