Cosmi/US Gold
£19.95
Super
Huey, a helicopter flight simulator, initially appeared for the
Commodore 64, several months before it was available for an Atari,
and I had been looking out for it for some time when it
simultaneously appeared for both the 8-bit and 16-bit machines. This
review is of the ST version.
There is a very nice title sequence to begin with and
then you find yourself in the cockpit of the machine a Bell
Helicopter UH-1XA. The cockpit interior is extremely detailed, with
an impressive variety of gauges and digital readouts. The graphics
of the ST seem to lend themselves to producing high-tech displays
like this, as can be seen in other games such as Starglider and Deep
Space. The lower part of the console contains various engine and
in-flight displays, while overhead there are navigational and
weapons status instrumentation.
The first thing you have to do is power up the
onboard computer, and having done this you may select one of the
four available missions. These are Flying School, Explore, Rescue,
and Combat. I naturally chose Combat first, and was quickly blown
out of the sky. Back to flying school.
Flying school is exactly what the name implies. The
mission takes you through take-off, flight and landing with commands
displayed on the screen of the onboard computer situated in the
middle of the lower console. This is a nice gentle introduction to
the complexities of helicopter flight, and the manual also contains
some quite detailed notes on the theory of rotary winged flight so
that you can understand what you are doing when you fly the
aircraft. Control of the helicopter in flight is entirely by means
of the mouse, with the keyboard used for actions such as selecting
the mission and loading/firing the weapons. The use of the mouse is
generally quite satisfactory, but I found it very tricky to turn the
helicopter and couldn't help thinking that this might have been
better done with a joystick. One other point is that while the
cockpit is very detailed the view out of the window is a real
let-down, with very little to actually look at. This is just as well
initially, as you have to concentrate hard on flying the thing
rather than looking out of the window, but it does not do justice to
the ST's graphics.
Having had enough of flying school, I went back into
Combat. Here you take on an (unnamed) enemy desert airbase complete
with hostile and very numerous helicopter forces. You don't have to
do anything to find these choppers, they'll find you, and when they
do the aim is quite simple – knock them all down before they do the
same to you! When you are shot down it is made apparent by a line of
very realistic bullet holes in the cockpit window which can give you
quite a shock the first time it happens. Fortunately, unlike the
real thing, you can have another go. The weapons available to you
include 20 rockets and a machine gun with 2,000 rounds. Since there
are 32 enemy helicopters, you can't afford to waste any ammunition.
If you get tired of being continually shot down, you
can try one of the other missions. Both of these are basically
navigational exercises. In Rescue, you are given the task of rescuing
stranded personnel, but you are only given a general position for
the party. This means that you will have to fly to the general area
and search it until you detect the transmission from their rescue
homing device. Once this is picked up, you follow the appropriate
heading until you spot the flares sent up by the party, then land,
collect them and return to base.
Finally, Explore requires you to map the terrain
around your base. When the map is complete, the instructions invite
you to send it to Cosmi and they will send you the correct map in
return.
I
think anyone who likes flight simulators would quite enjoy Super
Huey. Being a helicopter simulator, it is a little different from
other such programs and it does have that extra spice of getting
shot at. I can't help, however, having slight reservations,
particularly with regard to the sparsity of graphic detail outside
the cockpit. It occurred to me that this would be an excellent game
on an 8-bit Atari, but just isn't quite of the standard we are
coming to expect on the ST.
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