SimCopter
| SimCopter | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Maxis |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | Will Wright |
| Composer(s) | Jerry Martin |
| Platform(s) | Windows 95/98/Windows ME |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Flight simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
SimCopter is a 1996 flight simulator from Maxis. This game is a 3D offshoot from Maxis's normal fare, putting the player into a 3D city. Like Streets of SimCity, SimCopter lets the user import SimCity 2000 maps into the game. It is also the first game to use the official Sim language, Simlish.
As the name suggests, SimCopter puts the player in the role of a helicopter pilot. There are two modes of play: user mode and career mode. The user mode (free mode) lets the player import and fly through cities of their own or any of the 30 cities supplied with the game. However, user cities sometimes need to be designed with SimCopter in mind, and most of the time the player must increase the number of police stations, fire stations, and hospitals to allow for speedier dispatches. The career mode puts the player in the shoes of a pilot doing various jobs around a city.
While all other criminals roam the streets by foot, burglars drive through the city at high speed and are difficult to catch. All types of criminals can be arrested by picking up a police officer from the roof of a police station, and then dropping them near the criminal. Police cars can also be dispatched to aid in the arrest of a criminal. Criminals on foot can also be stopped by landing on top of them with the helicopter, which kills them, but this risks damage to the helicopter. Dropped police officers will callout whether or not they see the suspect, police officers need to be guided by the helicopter spotlight, if a police officer does not find a suspect, it will return to the helicopter. As soon as a police officer sees a suspect, she will keep chasing him until she gets him. Criminals can be slowed down by either using the spotlight or calling out the "Stop Criminal" message through the megaphone. Four jobs are available, namely Riot control, MEDEVAC, Transporting Sims, and Speeding Cars
Money and points can be earned by completing missions. Money and points can also be lost if the player does not complete a mission or too late. Missions will take points from the player after a set amount of time from the start of the mission while it remains uncompleted. Some missions will eventually be canceled resulting in a-point loss or will not reward anything after completion. Missions like MEDEVAC or fire fighting missions will result in large penalties if the victim dies or if the area gets destroyed by the fire. When the player has accumulated enough points, the game lets them move on to the next city. The player then has a choice of going into a new city of the same difficulty or advancing to the next level. There are twelve levels of difficulty, with new types of jobs being introduced and previous types of jobs increasing in difficulty. Jobs will be randomly spawned around the city, but the player's actions can also create jobs (see below).
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Wikipedia