Gunship 2000

The Good
Microprose did its magic and produced a wonderful game, accessible by rookies and pros alike. Plenty of choppers to fly in randomly generated missions, progressive career with a squad to command and additional, more capable helos to unlock with coming promotions was a genious move that pushed you to play it more.

Various game modes were available - you could hone your skills during training, where you were invincible. Fly single missions in a selected theatre. After promotion to 2nd Lt you were given access to Flight type missions where you commanded 4 additional helicopters. Finally you would unlock Campaign mode which would take you for a series of missions in a single hotzone, where your goal was to win the war.

All this was dressed in a spectacular 2d artwork of airbase offices, command tents, arming helo pads you could navigate between the missions. The interface resembled a point-and-click adventure game. - it was a great way of increasing immersion.

The game was accompanied by a thick manual, with chapters describing how helicopters operate taken out of Bill Gunston's Modern Fighting Helicopters book. It was a great read for every aviation enthusiast.

The Bad
The flight model wasn't that realistic, on the "Realistic" setting it was more of a nuisance. Games like Longbow Apache from Digital Integration did this aspect way better. Apache Longbow cockpit could also be modernized with 2 MFDs, but that's just a small nitpick.

The Bottom Line
The greatest helicopter flight simulation game of its time. On PC it had a spiritual successor in form of Jane's Longbow series, on Amiga it was never topped by anything else.

The Good
Microprose peaked with this game. The 3D theatres were unreal; very richly detailed, and far surpassing anything they'd done before. You could actually hover near the train tunnel and see through it out the other end of the hill! The AI was decent (with one failing). You finally had wingmen who would fight reasonably. The tactics are actually fairly realistic, as are the missions. The graphics are decent. If you ignore the lack of texturing and the simpler meshes, it even ages gracefully. and the military hardware was great; lots of helos (including the Stealth Comanche). You'd work your way up the ladder getting access to better and better ones. The game balance wasn't unreasonable; Unless you used the 'turn off my computer fast' cheat you would lose wingmen and get them replaced.

The Bad
It was very hard to play without a joystick.

You were supposed to hide behind e.g. a hill and pop up to fire, then duck back down. BUT the enemy missiles could fly through short distances of solid hill!

When you rose up, enemy radars would instantly to spot you and . They should have had a more realistic sweep delay. Because it meant what you'd have to do is "drive" a few feet along the ground and get real close. That part at least wasn't realistic.

The Bottom Line
In 1991 Microprose was at its peak. Their technology had come a long way and they were getting extremely good at what they did. GS2000 was their pinacle simulation. Basically, it was extremely good!

Unfortunately shortly after this "Wild Bill" decided to pursue the arcade game market, just in time for its slump. He sold, and Sid followed him shortly thereafter. Gilman Louie from Spectrum Holobyte took them over, at which point MPS started to slide. There is a difference between doing military simulations (which Louie presumably bought them for), and doing them well. Nothing they did after this came close. Their follow-up to GS2000 was F-14 which was more like Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon series. The magic was lost.

Check out GS2000 and you'll see MPS at their best!

The Good
Saddle up, if you think Gunship was great, then prepare to be blown out of your boots with this one.

If you've read my review on Gunship, well let's just say nothing prepared for the sheer excitement the sequel had to offer! Gunship 2000 I repeat is the BEST modern combat simulation around, even by today's standards! (Unless they did come up with something good that I'm not aware of...let me know somebody!)

Everything in this version of Gunship is bigger in every element:

• New Choppers: Once you only had an Apache Longbow, now you have more than one Apache Longbow versions in addition to various other choppers like the Blackhawk, Cobra, etc. Different kinds of choppers provide various combinations of offense and defense (although at most occasions you'd prefer a whole bunch of Apache Longbow D choppers locked and loaded with Hellfire missiles!) Some missions such as rescue missions require you having one Blackhawk chopper for example.
• Wingmen: Once you were a lone pilot, now you can have 4 buddies guarding your behind and see the whole horizon filled up with Hellfire missiles...it really doesn't get any better than that! You wingmen and wingwomen even gain ranks and medals, so it's more character development for RPG fans!

Wow, my limited vocabulary level eludes me from explaining all the great stuff about the game. Every new mission is an anticipation of a new medal or a new rank. New ranks means new wing pilots or new choppers to fly.

This was also the first time I experience the sheer power of the Sound Blaster digital speech in a simulation game. Suddenly my wingman was crying out "Incoming left, right, front, back...dang it all over!" (dramatization). That just blew me away! (that and the sidewinder stuck at my aft!) The sound effects was a major element in this game. Missiles flying, tanks exploding, machine guns roaring...it did it all. Everything just became a little closer to reality, dang they did a great job on this game!

The Bad
So I only get 4 wingmen flying around, that ain't bad. Could use more, but that wouldn't be fun either wouldn't it? Hehe. Gotta find me a good emulator to play this game again.

The Bottom Line
This is totally simulation magic.