Gunship: The Helicopter Simulation

Gunship is now available, after months of waiting, even after ST and PC versions were released, on the Amiga.

The world outside your 'copter is viewed in first person perspective, as usual, and that is how it stays. There are no outside views, there are no missile-eye views. There are no zoom facilities. There is not even a chase plane option. But that is a much more sensible way to generate atmosphere. It is a bit hard to believe in a flight simulator if you are pouncing around outside your plane, zooming in and out, not really flying. In Gunship, you are restricted to three views: look forward, look left and right, and that is the way it should be. After all there are not external views on a real chopper, are there?

This flight sim is fun. The controls are a little sluggish, but I get the feeling that is how they are supposed to handle; after all, this is a low-level combat chopper, not a Fiat Uno. The graphics are great. The clever use of shading mixed with filled vectors gives the game a very solid feel, especially where the enemy craft is concerned. Tanks look like tanks, AA guns look like real AA guns, small frightened people look like real frightened people.

The design of the game is identical in every detail to the 64 version, right down to the loading sequence. The missions follow along the same lines, the five areas you fly over are identical.

What you have here is the same brilliant game, but adapted to suit an Amiga, with better sound, graphics and playability. So who can complain?