HeliCops
Software Review by Raymundo Espinoza Jr.

Helicops is a futuristic game set in the year 2015, and is set in a city called Neo Tokyo. The bad guy in this game is named Maxwell Giger, he is the leader of a international crime syndicate called Nemesys.

Helicops is the name of the airborne strikeforce formed to free the city from the evil grips of Giger and Nemesys.

Installation

The installation is fast and simple. There are three types of installations: CD which installs sound and graphics files and uses 40mb of disk space, Optimal which installs graphics, sounds and stages, this install uses 60mb of disk space, and the Full install which loads everthing to the hard drive and uses 454mb of disk space. Note: If you do not install or have DirectX 3.0x you cannot acess modem or network play, and the game may not display properly.

System Requirements

For optimal performance, you should have at least following :

A Pentium 100MHZ processor,
8MB of RAM,
40Mb of hard drive space (for CD install),
256-color display, running at 640x480,
DirectX compliant for audio and video- PCI,
2MB DRAM,
Quad-speed CD-ROM drive,
Windows 95 and a Windows compatible joystick and mouse.

For kick-butt performance (their words not mine) they recommend the following:

A Pentium 133MHZ processor,
16MB of RAM,
60MB of hard drive space (454MB for a full hard drive install),
Quad-speed CD-ROM drive,
Windows 95,
Windows 95 compatible joystick .

Note: Helicops will support any Microsoft Windows direct input joystick. Throttle and rudder controls are recommended.

Help

Technical support is available Monday thru Friday from 8:00am to 9:00pm and Saturday from 8:00am to 7:00pm Central Time at (972)498-8010. Support is also available on AOL (Keyword Seventh), on MSN (Go Seventh) or you can visit the 7th levels home page (www.7thlevel.com) via the World Wide Web.

First Impressions

This game is really cool, it was easy to load, the graphics and sounds are really good, from the bullets bouncing off of the helicopter to the explosions of the targets being hit by missles. When I first started the game I had a hard time getting used to using the joystick and keyboard at the same time, but with a little practice I finally got it down., well..., sort of. There are five characters (pilots) to choose from and there are also five helicopters to choose from. There is a choice of four missions to fly, within those missions are four stages.

I had a little trouble getting through one of the first missions I tried out, I could not find the exit to that stage. After playing it for some time we (my 11yr old son and I) finally figured it out and came to the conclusion that it is very important to keep your eye on the onboard compass, and also watch your surroundings. Many of the valleys and tunnels can send you in circles so make sure to test them all. All the stages have different obstacles and targets but the objective is to stop terroristic activities (examples: Stop tanks from taking all the cities gold, recovering bombs and disposing of them, attack and destroy supertanker with drug shipment before it reaches the city) and destroy all targets until Giger is dead and the city is free.

Summary