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.