Fresh Fish 8/FreshFishVol8-CD1.bin/useful/reviews/software/games/gunship2000_2

Internet Message Format | 1993-07-29 | 16KB

Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Steve Koren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Gunship 2000
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games
Date: 29 Jul 1993 14:49:43 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 320
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <238o27$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Steve Koren)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: game, simulation, helicopter, commercial


PRODUCT NAME

    Gunship 2000 (henceforth, "GS2K")


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    GS2K is helicopter combat simulator by MicroProse.  If you are at
all a flight simulator fan, get this game.  'Nuff said.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Microprose
    Address:    Unit 1
            Hampton Road Industrial Estate
            Tetbury, Glos. GL8 8LD
            UK


LIST PRICE

    $50 (US).  Mail order prices are cheaper.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    1 MB RAM if run from floppies.

    1.5 MB RAM if run from a hard drive.  (I recommend this because the
    game comes on 4 floppies.)


COPY PROTECTION

    GS2K is hard disk installable and protected via keyword lookup in
the manual.  You only have to do this once, and it is quite tolerable.


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    The game was tested on an Amiga 4000 running AmigaDOS 3.0 with 18 MB
of RAM.


INSTALLATION AND SYSTEM FRIENDLINESS

    Microprose did not use the standard AmigaDOS Installer utility, but
made their own.  Theirs offers me some strange things, such as the choice of
installing the software on my tape drive, but otherwise works OK.  The game
supports an analog joystick, which is quite preferable to keyboard or
digital joystick control.

    GS2K multitasks fairly well, except that it rather rudely insists on
closing down your Workbench screen before it loads.  If you have other
workspaces open or have a hotkey to instantiate one, these will work fine
after the game is loaded.  In fact, I have GS2K running right now as I type
this review into Emacs, with the only noticeable effect being the repetitious
music.  It helps to lower the task priority of the game though.


THE GAME

    There are several phases to GS2K.  Initially, you are a novice pilot
who must complete flight training before being qualified to fly combat
missions.  In flight training, you are supposed to learn the to fly the
helicopter (or "copter"), operations of the weapons systems, etc.  Enemy
fire has no effect on your helicopter in this mode.

    After training, you are qualified for combat ops.  There are 8 total
helicopters in the game which you can fly: the AH-64A Apache, The AH-64B
Longbow Apache, the AH-1W SuperCobra, the AH-66A Comanche (2 versions), the
OH-58D Kiowa Scout, the UH-60K Blackhawk, and the AH-6D Defender.  However,
you can't fly the better equipment until you prove yourself in combat.  Each
helicopter has its own selection of weapons, and picking the right copter
for the job can be important.  Each copter has its own features and cockpit
layout (the cockpits look quite nice).

    After flying a certain number of single-helicopter operations, you
can graduate to controlling a flight of 5 copters, divided into a heavy
section of 3, and a light section of 2.  There is a primary and a secondary
objective to each mission, and you can send one section after the primary
and one after the secondary, send both sections to either objective, or any
other combination.  You have some limited control over the individual
helicopters; you can give them destinations, and commands such as "hold
position", "land", "disengage from combat", "rejoin formation", etc.  They
also have some degree of independence:  they will attack targets of
opportunity or defend themselves against aggression.  You can review the
systems status of each copter, including damage, remaining weapons,
remaining fuel, and cargo.  This can be important when deciding which member
of a flight to send into a dangerous situation, or whether to send a
critically wounded flight member back to base early.

    By controlling the paths of helicopters, you can use terrain as a
shield when approaching a combat area.  You can use tactics such as safely
landing your gas-guzzling and cargo-laden Blackhawk helicopters behind the
shelter of a hill while your Apache Gunships sweep the landing zone to
eliminate any opposition.  Scouts can be used to supply remote target
designation for hidden gunship.  During combat, you can jump to an outside
view of any helicopter to see what it is doing.  You can take an active part
in combat operations in your helicopter, or just fly in to a spot near the
battle, park safely behind a hill, and tell your other flight members what
to do.  Other flight members will fill you in on their actions, such as "I'm
engaging target", or "Primary objective sighted".  Your flight members all
have skill levels, and loosing one in combat gets you a new rookie to train
from scratch.  Experienced pilots are tolerably but not exceptionally
intelligent.  They are, however, almost too brave in the face of
insurmountable odds.


COMBAT

    Combat is quite well done.  Weapons are modeled well, both yours and
the enemies.  You are able to fight with better weapons systems as you gain
combat experience.  These can make a critical difference in the battle:
getting good fire-and-forget weapons instead of helicopter-guided ones can
tilt the table in your favor.

    Proper use of terrain is a must.  If you simply charge into battle
with an armored unit, guns blazing, you are not likely to last very long,
especially with enemy skill set high.  Instead, you must plan your attack
carefully.  One tactic is to hover behind some covering terrain such as a
hillside or ridge, pop up over the top, launch a weapon, and dive as soon as
the weapon has hit.  This limits your exposure to hostile fire.  This
situation is, however, complicated by the fact that the bad guys will notice
you and shoot back.  With low skill opponents, it might take them 10 or more
seconds to shoot back. With highly skilled opponents, they will have their
shots off as quickly as you do.  Thus, to avoid being hit you must dive
behind cover early, meaning your shot was not guided in and is likely to
miss its target.  Since ordinance is quite limited, this can be a major
problem.  Other problems involve getting close enough for a targeting
solution - often you must fly between two hills with no protection from the
terrain, making you a sitting duck for SAMs or AA fire.  In this situation
it is tempting to fly straight for the things which are shooting at you, but
this is usually not wise.  Your copilot helps out by calling out things like
"incoming right!", or "target left!".  Before a crash he will also say,
"We're going in!"  Also, stereo sound effects are supported, so you can
often hear which direction a missile is coming from even before you see it.

    There are a wealth of little details in combat taken care of which
make the game seem much more realistic.  For some examples:

    -    Speed of various missiles is modeled accurately.  If you
    fire a fast weapon, it will get there sooner, thus giving you more
    time to hide before incoming weapons can reach you.  Even your cannon
    rounds take a little time to travel a kilometer and a half.

    -    Bad guys turn to face their current target.  On the weapons
    camera, I once watched a SAM unit turn to face my wingman who was a
    little distance away, then turn again 50 degrees to face me and fire.
    Often you can even tell when they have a weapon loaded.

    -    Sometimes if you are hovering just peeking over a hill, the
    bad guys won't pick you up on radar.  However, if you fire and don't
    destroy them, they will immediately turn to the direction your shot
    came from to look for you, and then fire.  This is the kind of simple
    feature that adds realism but is missing from many other games.

    -    If an incoming missile misses you, it will often detonate
    when it hits a hill or ridge in front of or behind you, making a nice
    explosion and sending fragments flying.  If it is close, it will
    also shake up your helicopter a bit.  It is a nice effect.

    -    If you shoot down a helicopter, its