Gunship! by Microprose

[Staggerwing]

Yep. gunship, F-15 strike eagle and F-19 stealth fighter were my commodore  64 staples!

...and don't forget Taskforce 1942.  Wish they'd redo the whole Microprose catalog.

Task Force 1942! I have that on floppies, so help me gods. And all the map goodies n shtuff as well.

[Apocalypse 31]

I wish a company would graphically remake the entire micropose catalog.

Then link them together to make one awesome combined arms game

[Staggerwing]

IIRC, the naval wargame Task force 1942 and the flight sim Pacific Strike linked together so you could sail your flattops into harms way in the former and then launch a strike which you could fly yourself in the latter. Too bad Pacific Strike was buggy and looked like crap due to the low resolution.  :(

EDIT: I was wrong about the actual sim- it was 1942 Pacific Air War, and it didn't link to TF1942, it was actually built over a version of it, with the naval aspect allowing you to control ships and then automatically firing up the flight sim when you wanted to fly along on an air mission.

[Apocalypse 31]

I picked it up.

Looks great for a game this old, but crashes at any normal resolution when I try to bring up the in game map or play the tutorial missions.

No in game map is kind of a deal breaker

It has to do with the resolution your at......if you change it to a resolution like 1280x1024x32, it will work fine.....other resolutions, not so much.  I tried this in the demo and it worked.  If I changed to 1920x1080, it crashed.  Other resolutions might work too, you will have to fool around.

Yep, that was it. Thanks.

This game is pretty damn hard. My gunner never picks up AAA, and I get shot out of the sky with ease.

In fact, the gunnery is horrible overall and seems to miss a lot of targets.

[spelk]

In my experience, old games peddled on Steam are almost always fraught with issues, and Steam isn't really set up to support these games. Perhaps GOG are, because they work exclusively with making old games playable and supportable on new platforms. Steam isn't. So after being burned with a few titles, I'm always wary of taking on old games on Steam.

[Grim.Reaper]

I picked it up.

Looks great for a game this old, but crashes at any normal resolution when I try to bring up the in game map or play the tutorial missions.

No in game map is kind of a deal breaker

It has to do with the resolution your at......if you change it to a resolution like 1280x1024x32, it will work fine.....other resolutions, not so much.  I tried this in the demo and it worked.  If I changed to 1920x1080, it crashed.  Other resolutions might work too, you will have to fool around.

Yep, that was it. Thanks.

This game is pretty damn hard. My gunner never picks up AAA, and I get shot out of the sky with ease.

In fact, the gunnery is horrible overall and seems to miss a lot of targets.

Just curious when you say the gunner can't pick up anything and misses targets, is there a mode in the full release where you just pilot the helicopter and the gunner handles all gunnery duty?  In the demo, it didn't appear to have that mode so wasn't sure what you meant.  When I pilot the helicopter it seemed I was also responsible for shooting.  However it did appear the gunner tried to identify targets for me but seemed I could still cycle through the targets and get lock.  Using the missiles, I was able to hit all the targets but when it came to using the machine gun, it was a lot harder to hit.

When I flew, there was also another helicopter assigned to my flight which was under AI control.  It seemed pretty competent in taking out targets on its own and in fact, it often picked up targets before I could even find them.  I also noticed it used the counter measures quite a bit to help not get shot down and really hugged the earth/trees to present a minimal profile to the enemy.

Also the game appears to have many different difficulty settings, I wonder if any of what you saw was based on the setting.  Again, my observations was purely based on the demo so it can be completely different in the demo.

I am probably over thinking a $7 game:)

[jomni]

http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=22708&tab=controls

You can switch between Gunner and Pilot cockpit. 
I think it was planned to have network play where one player is gunner and another is pilot.

[Grim.Reaper]

http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=22708&tab=controls

You can switch between Gunner and Pilot cockpit. 
I think it was planned to have network play where one player is gunner and another is pilot.

Yep, that is in the demo...but when I switch to pilot, the gunner did not automatically fire on targets without me ordering it.

[Apocalypse 31]

Just curious when you say the gunner can't pick up anything and misses targets, is there a mode in the full release where you just pilot the helicopter and the gunner handles all gunnery duty?  In the demo, it didn't appear to have that mode so wasn't sure what you meant.  When I pilot the helicopter it seemed I was also responsible for shooting.  However it did appear the gunner tried to identify targets for me but seemed I could still cycle through the targets and get lock.  Using the missiles, I was able to hit all the targets but when it came to using the machine gun, it was a lot harder to hit.

When I flew, there was also another helicopter assigned to my flight which was under AI control.  It seemed pretty competent in taking out targets on its own and in fact, it often picked up targets before I could even find them.  I also noticed it used the counter measures quite a bit to help not get shot down and really hugged the earth/trees to present a minimal profile to the enemy.

Also the game appears to have many different difficulty settings, I wonder if any of what you saw was based on the setting.  Again, my observations was purely based on the demo so it can be completely different in the demo.

I am probably over thinking a $7 game:)

Sometimes the gunner will engage targets on his own. I have no idea how to toggle that.

In any case, the gunner is freaking horrible at identifying targets. Even when a target appears on the FCS, it is very difficult to get the gunner to lock onto that target. The 'next target' and 'previous target' buttons don't seem to work as intended, and the 'line of site' button (suppose to lock onto a target within the pilots line of site) doesn't work either.

This results in me being shot out of the sky by AAA - very difficult since my gunner seems to target whatever he wants.

Also - extremely annoying, but my gunner won't identify full units. The gunner will identify 1 out of 3 tanks in a tank platoon. I can see the contact on my FCS, but for whatever reason the gunner will not lock onto the targets.

[Staggerwing]

Maybe on 'Recruit' difficulty level the gunner is the actual recruit in question...  :D

[Grim.Reaper]

Just curious when you say the gunner can't pick up anything and misses targets, is there a mode in the full release where you just pilot the helicopter and the gunner handles all gunnery duty?  In the demo, it didn't appear to have that mode so wasn't sure what you meant.  When I pilot the helicopter it seemed I was also responsible for shooting.  However it did appear the gunner tried to identify targets for me but seemed I could still cycle through the targets and get lock.  Using the missiles, I was able to hit all the targets but when it came to using the machine gun, it was a lot harder to hit.

When I flew, there was also another helicopter assigned to my flight which was under AI control.  It seemed pretty competent in taking out targets on its own and in fact, it often picked up targets before I could even find them.  I also noticed it used the counter measures quite a bit to help not get shot down and really hugged the earth/trees to present a minimal profile to the enemy.

Also the game appears to have many different difficulty settings, I wonder if any of what you saw was based on the setting.  Again, my observations was purely based on the demo so it can be completely different in the demo.

I am probably over thinking a $7 game:)

Sometimes the gunner will engage targets on his own. I have no idea how to toggle that.

In any case, the gunner is freaking horrible at identifying targets. Even when a target appears on the FCS, it is very difficult to get the gunner to lock onto that target. The 'next target' and 'previous target' buttons don't seem to work as intended, and the 'line of site' button (suppose to lock onto a target within the pilots line of site) doesn't work either.

This results in me being shot out of the sky by AAA - very difficult since my gunner seems to target whatever he wants.

Also - extremely annoying, but my gunner won't identify full units. The gunner will identify 1 out of 3 tanks in a tank platoon. I can see the contact on my FCS, but for whatever reason the gunner will not lock onto the targets.

That's too bad....I guess that is why it is only $7 :)  I actually liked how easy it was to fly, but if the gunner is not reasonable, you don't stand a chance.

[Apocalypse 31]

I haven't tried MP yet. Let me know if you pick it up, we can give it a go.


And yes, the flying part is actually really easy, especially compared to EECH.

Bird will come to a hover (and stay!) very nicely.

[Grim.Reaper]

I haven't tried MP yet. Let me know if you pick it up, we can give it a go.


And yes, the flying part is actually really easy, especially compared to EECH.

Bird will come to a hover (and stay!) very nicely.

Yeah, was easy to take off, was easy to hover and generally easy to hug the terrain and popup.....not sure if realistic or not, but it was easy and I liked the feel:)

I will let you know if I get it, right now eyeing a different purchase which will likely make me wait for a bit on this one, especially if the supporting AI is not that great.

[Nefaro]

I could never get the hang of the controls in Gunship which was odd since I had no trouble with the Jane's Longbow sims and Enemy Engaged sims.

Same.  This version was the only helo sim I found a real pain in the ass to fly.  I suppose DCS Black Shark would be the same, but that's only tied into learning how to use the weird Russkie trim; the controls are just fine. 

I still have EECH installed with the MegaMod, if I ever feel the need for an old-fashioned helo sim (with much more content).

[Great Ajax]

I really miss the Microprose level of simulations these days.  They were simulator enough to scratch the itch without going over the top.  The replay value with random campaigns and missions were second to none.  I just can't get into the modern simulators because the learning curve exceeds my time available for gaming.  In the Microprose days, I could throw on a keyboard template and be flying in an hour or so.  I miss managing pilots and building squadron loadouts.  I load up DCS and stare at it for fifteen minutes before I end up doing something else.

Trey