Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!seven
From: seven@nuchat.UUCP (David Paulsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: Request for game reviews/comments
Message-ID: <475@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 87 05:15:34 GMT
References: <1001@edge.UUCP>
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 148
Summary: GUNSHIP: The Review
	 "You've read the book, seen the movie, and played the game...
	  now read the review."



>doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) asks:
>
>I'm looking for reviews/comments for some C-64 games; anyone able to help?
>
>Any of the various helicopter simulations:
>  Gunship (MicroProse)
     -by-
MicroProse Simulation Software
120 Lakefront Drive
Hunt Valley, MD  21030
(301) 771-1151

Yes!  Yes!  Get this one!
I picked it up almost a year ago, and STILL haven't gotten tired of playing it.
It's a magnatude faster than the Sublogic titles I've seen, and is a total
bitch to play on the higher levels.  There's a whole slew of missions to fly,
with four difficulty levels on each... plus you can toggle such factors as 
real vs. easy flight characteristics, static or varying weather, safe or
dangerous landings.  All these combine to make _Gunship_ a number of different
games in one.

GRAPHICS

There's real terrain to look at (and fly into) including hills, rivers, roads
and buildings, displayed in clean-looking 3D line-graphics. (No solid shapes.) 
Firing missiles or 30mm rounds yields an impressive display.  The missiles
all look different, and are easy to tell apart. Fire Sidewinder #1 and it 
streaks off your starboard wing.  Fire your second, and it launches from the 
port wing!  Clearly somebody was awake at MicroProse when they wrote this...
The sound of your rotors change as you fly over a hill or thru
a valley, enhancing the sense of realism.  If you shoot at non-military
targets (like civillian buildings or huts) you get reprimanded over the radio;
if you blast away at a friendly M1 tank, your chances at promotion are lessened
considerably. :-)

FLIGHT CHARACTERISTICS

The avionics are impressive.  The joystick controls the cyclic, while the
function keys control the collective: F1=UP FAST, F3=UP SLOW, F5=DOWN SLOW,
F7=DOWN FAST.  This works well.  To get up in the air, you start your engines,
engage the rotor clutch (whup, whup, whup), run the collective up a bunch by
tapping F1 a few times, and presto -- you're hovering.  Under 50 feet of
altitude and the ground-effects from the prop wash make it hard to hold steady.
Push the stick forward a little, the nose drops and the rotors bite, pushing
you forwards and up.  Pulling back on the stick levels you out again, and if
you don't move your collective down (via F5 or F7) you'll shoot up in the air!
Pull back HARD, the nose'll come up, and the ship will drift backwards.
Under about 50 knots, you can slew sideways or tap the tail-rotor controls to
sit'n'spin... like a real copter, this one behaves differently at different
altitudes and speeds.  In case of engine failure, you can even autorotate down
to a safe landing -- IF you remember to unclutch your main rotor from the dead
engines!

If you don't care to learn how to fly a helicopter, you can switch on the "easy"
flight mode, which makes the AH-64 respond more like an arcade game airplane.
You can't do real fancy maneuvers, but then again it's real hard to crash too.
Turn on the "all landings are perfect" mode and you almost literally can't lose.

WEAPONS SYSTEMS

There are four main weapons systems: the 30mm chain-gun, 2.75" FFAR (folding fin
air rocket) pods, AGM-114A Hellfire smart anti-tank missiles, and AIM-9L
Sidewinders.  In addition there's chaff and flak launchers, plus electronic
jamming systems.

Targeting for all the weapons (except the FFARs) is thru the TADS targeting 
system.  TADS is an acronym which stands for Totally Accurate Destruction
Service (no, actually it means Target Acquisition & Designation System. 
...just foolin') and provides a targeting pipper on your heads-up display.
TADS is almost _always_ busily targeting something, whether it's a pack of
crazed Iranians or your own base is up to you to decide.  All you have to do
is pull the trigger.  There's an automated, self-aiming video camera with
zoom lens always synced in with what TADS is looking at, so you can
usually tell what you're gonna shoot at.  If your avionics bay takes a hit, 
TADS might quit working, or worse, might just start giving spurrious readings
on range and direction to your weapons.  Not fun.

The Folding Fin Air Rockets are really fun, being the only non-TADS targeted 
system there is.  You just line up the crosshair, and pull the trigger to
release as many rockets as you like... there's no limit to how many you can 
have in the air at once!  They're "stupid" weapons, which means they're not
capable of being spoofed by the enemy's ECM. They're used mainly to suppress
"soft" targets, like infantry, and make impressive booming noises upon impact.

The Hellfires are laser-guided antitank missiles.  They come in pods of four.
All you have to do is make sure TADS is awake, pull the trigger, and 
keep facing in the approximate direction of your target so that your laser
illuminates it okay... the missile homes in on whatever the laser lights up.
This is the only weapon you can "call back" if you accidently fire it at a
friendly target; move the laser and the missile follows, hopefully someplace
AWAY from that M1 you targeted by mistake...  

The Sidewinders are exclusively for air targets like the Soviet Hind helicopters
that follow you around.  You can only fit two Sidewinders on your chopper, but
one per enemy is usually enough... they're deadly.  If you're foolish enough
to let that Hind get within gun-range, you're probably dead.

When you fire any of your weapons, recoil makes the nose of your chopper jump
up.  After playing the game for awhile, you develop a reflex to push forward
on the stick before launching anything... I can't help but wonder if real AH-64
pilots don't develop this same reflex?

COPY-PROTECTION/PACKAGING

This simulation comes with an excellent 84-page manual, complete with diagrams
and hints.  There are sections on avionics, so you can understand the how and
the why of things -- not just that it is so.  The manual is part of the copy
protection.  Not only is the game impossible to learn without documentation, 
but there are pictures of enemy hardware in the back that you MUST have to get
past the game's initial boot-up screen.  Upon loading, _Gunship_ displays one
of about a dozen different tanks/apcs/hellicopters it knows, and you must
correctly match up the picture in the back of the book and type in the name!
This sounds awful, but it isn't really... you see it once per session, and not
again till you boot up your game again.  Besides, the pictures are nice to look
at, and you'll actually meet some of these baddies once you start playing...

There's a blindingly fast quick-loader employed to boot _Gunship_, and I'm
happy to report that it seems to work equally well on 1541 clones.  (I use
an Emerald Excellerator+Plus 1541 clone, have no problems with it.)
The disk itself is double-sided, and incredibly difficult to copy.  As far as
I'm concerned it's impossible, but I know better than to go around saying
things like that... :-) No commercial copier I have will touch it: Fast Hack'Em,
Disector, Mr.Nibble, Shadow, etc.  but that's OK; the disk has help up so far.

There's a handy keyboard overlay, with break-away function keys so you can fit
it on a C128 keyboard as well as the old 64's... nice touch!  I use a bit of
tape to hold it in place during my frenzied sessions.

An odd bit of _Gunship_ trivia: the manual lists a designer's credit for
music, but the game is tune-less as far as I can tell.  I've never heard MY
copy play music.

SUMMARY

All in all, an excellent investment of $26.95, the price being charged in 
Seattle, Washington about 11 months ago.  I would definitely buy it over again.
Perhaps I will anyway -- how long does a floppy disk last, anyway? :-)

Disclaimer: I don't work for MicroProse, but I wish I did!


-- 
David Paulsen            ...uunet.UU.NET!nuchat!seven

"It had a maw that could swallow a DOZEN starships!"
      --Commodore Matt Decker, chewing on the scenery again