You guys need to do more flight sims! You’ve only done three so far! THREE! 😉 I’m therefore going to recommend my favorite of them all, 1991’s Gunship 2000.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/891/gunship-2000/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunship_2000
You can also buy it, and the original Gunship, on GOG and Steam!
https://www.gog.com/en/game/gunship_gunship_2000
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2766090/Gunship__Gunship_2000/
Now, Gunship 2000 isn’t just a flight sim, it’s an RPG with strategic elements! While you initially start off flying a solo helicopter on the game’s random missions, eventually you rank up to command a flight, and this is where the fun really begins.
A flight is five helicopters, a heavy element of three and a light element of two. This is important because as soon as you get a flight, the missions become more varied. While the primary missions might be to take out a bunker or some such, the secondary mission might be to find a downed pilot. This is where the game’s amazing variety of seven helicopters come in.
Two Apaches, two Comanches, two scout helicopters (Defender and Kiowa Warrior) and the famous Blackhawk. You can fly any of these, and so can your AI flight mates.
The beauty of this is that, not only do you gain ranks, but so do the members of your flight. They rank up and gain skills, meaning you have to take care of them as become so, so valuable as they get more potent.
You control your flight with the amazing map, which thankfully pauses while you’re using it. You can set waypoints for you and each individual helicopter or element, and they’ll do their jobs without having to micro them. For example, if your Blackhawk sees their downed pilot objective, they’ll go get them on their own.
This, coupled with MicroProse’s amazing mission generation, per-mission difficulty settings (a staple of their earlier sims), varied theaters (Europe, Persian Gulf, Philippines and Antarctica) and multiple mission types means you could basically play this thing forever.
So yeah, I think this would be a great addition to the show! 🙂
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