Helicopter Simulator 2014: Search and Rescue

Helicopter Simulator 2014: Search and Rescue

Update 2 - Sep 30, 2016

More on physics - There’s strong wind effect during stormy weather which makes landing hazardous. Heavier chopper mitigates it but reduces room to manoeuver.

Difficulty - Hard when landing spots are located in tight spaces although plenty of space is available nearby. Easy when trees aren’t solid.

Update 2 - Sep 19, 2016 - editing and some additional info

TL;DR

IMO this game is awesome! BUT mission design shows lack of careful planning. Maps have interesting landmarks worthy of some sighseeing trips.

Real player with 56.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Flight Singleplayer Games.


Search and Rescue may not be for the hardcore flight simulaton gamer. It is not fully realistic, but still you’d better have a Joystick with some axles for it. It is somewhere in between of Simulation and Arcade.

Compared to Sim copter this title is more simulation and more serious. Where in Sim copter you flew around in a city and things happened which you had to clear, in this game you can fly around on different Island maps and things only happen, when you start a mission with a specific objective each. For each mission you can choose one of the helicopters that can do the job (not every Helicopter is available in every mission). There is no career mode where you get better Helicopters after some time of playing. At least there is no career mode, yet.

Real player with 34.0 hrs in game

Helicopter Simulator 2014: Search and Rescue on Steam

Night Witch: 588

Night Witch: 588

Good.

Real player with 3.2 hrs in game


Read More: Best Flight Stealth Games.


Really great dev working on the game and fixing issues. Updated the review to reflect changes.

original review

The main menu isn’t useable with the mouse (as it says in the Steam description) but it SHOULD be.

The controls are not able to be customized so flying the plane is annoying as hell.

There is very little feedback regarding whether you actually hit a target or not.

I really like the premise but the execution is bad.

https://youtu.be/KSNIpWDIFGs

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Night Witch: 588 on Steam

JetX Space Edition

JetX Space Edition

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZJCp_5t3LXI

A decent arena battler with various game modes to play. For example, you can play shooting modes in a team deathmatch style where you fight to reach the winning score. Races can also be played, competing and also trying to best your time with the addition of a leaderboard. This is nice as it may add a bit of replayability at least. But because not many people play this game, there wouldn’t be much of a leaderboard to compare to anyways. Visuals aren’t bad where it does have some minimalist kind of looks. I think the game does have an emphasis on online pvp because of trhe genre and style of game it is, though i would have to give it a thumbs down because of the dead player base. It’s not too fun by yourself and playing with the AI. Although It is cheap enough to grab, you would need a quite a number of friends to all get their own copy to play together. Because it is a dead game, If there were more people playing online then it would perhaps be worth checking it out.

Real player with 0.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Flight Racing Games.


JetX Space Edition on Steam

NiGHTS Into Dreams

NiGHTS Into Dreams

I will never shut up about NiGHTS, so if writing this review will allow me to talk about it, I’m going to!

First off, if you love any of SEGA’s classics and have heard a lot about NiGHTS but you’re not sure if you’ll like it, I would HIGHLY recommend you give it a go. This game is really cheap on Steam these days, which makes sense because game itself is 20+ years old so by today’s standards is ‘worth less’, I guess. However, if even eight dollars (or however much it may be in your country, for US it 8 dollars which is pretty inexpensive) seems like a lot to you to be paying for a game released in 1996 that you’re not even sure if good… IT GOES ON SALE SO OFTEN. I literally got my copy of the game for like, $2 I think? And trust me when I say it’s worth much more than just that. You’re getting a really fun, arcade experience that’s very light on PC usage for almost free. Definitely a wise choice, if you’re looking for something like that.

Real player with 24.5 hrs in game

This is definitely a recommendation, but a bit of a cautious one at that.

NiGHTS Into Dreams is one of those classic titles from the 90’s that had a cult following well after its release. I remember the Wii sequel unveiling hyping people up-a small number of people, but a number of people nonetheless. Significant enough to note on this review, at least.

NiGHTS Into Dreams is also one of those 90’s games that was trying to figure out how to make 3D gameworlds work. Just two years prior to NiGHTS the team responsible for developing it (Sonic Team) released Sonic 3&K. Originally intended to be a 2D game, the team switched to 3D and was more or less at a loss as to how to effectively make an experience that was enjoyable and easy to grasp and handle. They even made a new controller for the Sega Saturn to effectively control the character in the game. It was really just a standard pad with an analogue stick-something the original saturn controller lacked-which goes to show you how new the entire concept of 3D was at the time.

Real player with 19.0 hrs in game

NiGHTS Into Dreams on Steam

Project Wingman

Project Wingman

Project Wingman feels like playing an Ace Combat game, but where Ace Combat flirts a little with it’s crazier aspects, Project Wingman embraces them. And it is all the better for it.

It takes a lot for a game with a campaign to get me to actually finish it because I usually end up distracted by another game before I do so. But with PW I haven’t just cleared it once, but multiple times already. Sometimes I just play a few missions for no other reason than that the game is just that much fun and I have nothing else quite like it.

Real player with 48.9 hrs in game

A beautiful post-rapture future in which California has finally been destroyed with all of its subhuman inhabitants, and all warfare is fought by huge swarms of advanced jet fighters. Where mercenary units can afford warplanes that would bankrupt small nations, and wars are fought over “Cordium,” a magic rock that allows scientists to subvert the inverse-square law.

Welcome to Project Wingman.

It’s best not to think of this game as a jet pilot simulator. It is a jet pilot movie simulator, much like Ace Combat. You control a warplane with an absurd capacity for missiles, and slaughter tens of thousands of enemies, like a wrathful god soaring on wings of steel. Play through a memorable campaign full of shocking twists and intensely frustrating missions. Replay these missions with a wide variety of jets, from clunky but awesome ground attack planes to sleek, sexy air superiority fighters. After you get bored of that, Conquest Mode may tickle your desire to fight 50 airships in one mission. There’s not a lot to say: If you’ve run out of Ace Combat games to play, pick this one up.

Real player with 31.3 hrs in game

Project Wingman on Steam

Orbital Racer

Orbital Racer

wow. I can’t believe how great this game is.

I play only “float”, (no “flight assist” or “inertial stabilization”), and I use a custom 4 joystick controller I made from arduino so that I can have all 6dof on sticks,, and actually searched high and low for a game just like this one,,, never found it,,, and only discovered it when someone recommended it in a forum.

This game does take more coordination than the average bear who didn’t play 6dof yet,,, but Nothing makes me happier than a game where the main engine provides the real thrust, and the maneuvering thrusters are proportionally smaller,, (forcing the pilot to point the crafts nose much sharper than the required turn, and throttle the main engine)… I can’t believe my luck!!

Real player with 99.3 hrs in game

The single-player-only game features checkpoint racing on twenty-four tracks in eight locations around our solar system; there are no randomized tracks, which would be seemingly easy to do in space. A career mode where race earnings can be spent on vehicle upgrades accompanies simple custom races. Handling can be done in either action or simulation mode, the latter of which has more realistic thruster-based flying and lacks powerups. The interface clearly indicates upcoming checkpoint locations for easier navigation. Powerups in the action mode are randomized and are given out every three checkpoints to all racers, which means everyone uses their weapons at the same time; a more interesting method would involve pickup locations away from the main racing line. Impact (causing damage) and EMP (causing controls to stop for several seconds) weapons come in launched missiles or dropped mines. A completely destroyed craft respawns at the last checkpoint. The AI is very good at handling both racing modes and provides a good opponent. Orbital Racer has a unique setting and simply needs some tweaks (random tracks, improved powerup distribution) to stand out.

Real player with 8.5 hrs in game

Orbital Racer on Steam

Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut

Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut

While I have experience in space shooters in general, Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut always fancied me when I wanted to try another game. Finally adding this game to my Steam library and clocking in actual playtime, does this game have the merits to be considered worthy to the genre?

The Good:

  • The music is memorable, especially when you get the title Strike Suit. Paul Ruskay of Homeworld fame does it again.

  • The graphics are nicely done, especially on higher end machines. The art style is also appropriate for this title, and

Real player with 19.5 hrs in game

I love spaceships. Always have, always will. In particular, I love fictional spaceships blowing the snot out of each other with lasers, missiles, and giant machineguns. Among that category, I especially love small-scale dogfights between small fightercraft. The careful maneuvering. The tense lining up of the perfect shot. The inadvisable victory flourish of flying through your vaporized enemy’s debris cloud.

Problem is, I suck at it.

The venerable Freespace 2 is widely reputed to be the master of this genre, but buying and playing it left me cold. It seemed to expect that I would have the reflexes, dexterity, and coordination to be an actual fighter pilot, with the ability to juggle power systems, track objectives, use a target-lock system that was like finding a needle in a haystack, command allied wingman, find and execute a target that seemingly has no bearing on the overall battle, all while worrying about pesky enemy fighters that seem infinitely faster and more maneuverable than I am. When all I wanted to do was fly around shooting stuff, this was simply not fun. I have been searching for a game to scratch my Luke Skywalker itch for years, and with Strike Suit Zero, I have finally found it.

Real player with 12.9 hrs in game

Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut on Steam

Viper

Viper

Note before We begin: While I may not have much on the PC Version of the game I have owned the original PS1 Version of the game since it’s release and will be referring mostly to the PS1 Version for this review

In addition at the time of this writing there is a bug causing the game to crash on the 2nd level without entering the password for it. The developers have confirmed this is being fixed.

Viper…This could be one of the most obscure games in the Playstation’s Library.

If I could summarize Viper I would say it is Star Fox mixed with a Shoot ‘em up. You play as Eddie Crane piloting his craft The Viper as he strikes out against aliens who have covertly invaded Earth…Thats it, Thats the story

Real player with 0.2 hrs in game

So this was an interesting, didn’t expect to see it here of all places and hopefully you’ll find this review helpful:

  1. This is a PS1 game:

I’m not saying this is a port of a PS1 game, this is literally a rip of the disc being run through a PS1 emulator, specifically PCSX-Reloaded, you’d think this would be a negative and it kind of is, but it’s actually very convenient, the build of PCSX-R they use doesn’t have a lot of features and I found it fairly lacking, but hey, you can easily use any other emulator if you want, the game files are right there in the folder! I used Duckstation, which is why it looks like I haven’t played the game for more than a few minutes on steam, it allowed me to upscale the game, run it smoothly and I even used a widescreen hack because why not, it’s super simple to do and I highly recommend it because that’s the fun of PC gaming. That said, I do wish the product page was upfront about it, much of GOG’s runs on Dosbox, emulation is legit, no need to hide it.

Real player with 0.1 hrs in game

Viper on Steam

Elbub

Elbub

This game may look very zen on the outside.

When you start playing you might feel like you’re inside a mysterious bubbley type world-

Then you start playing…

You realize you need to be global elite to aim to head towards the bubbles.

Or an experienced austronaut working outside the hubble/space station.

Then you realize you have to follow the ribbon to finish the game xD

Took me 10min to realize that :)

Overall good game, just hard to navigate at the 1st time i guess ;)

It has a nice soundtrack too.

Real player with 9.3 hrs in game

This thing is weird. Really.

The first thing we see launching the game is a menu written in a fancy font related to being a bubble among skies. I don’t mind the font, but the choice of colors is terrible and it looks really bad.

The game itself is playing with gravity by attracting yourself to nearby bubbles in a weird world. There is only sky, a very weird blob-like construction, some strings that we should follow, bubbles of course. And nothing more. It’s psychodelic. Even more when we hit something. And even even more when we click right mouse button by accident.

Real player with 4.0 hrs in game

Elbub on Steam

JetX VR

JetX VR

Gameplay feels pretty similar to Skyfront VR, which is also a flying shooter. What Jet X does to differentiate itself is the game modes in addition to deathmatch. There is a racing mode (really fun) and my favorite, energy core. In this mode, everyone is after the energy core. When someone picks it up, everyone gangs up to kill them and drop the core. Next person picks it up and flies away from everyone to hold the core as long as possible. First player to hold the core for a total of 100 seconds wins.

Real player with 9.1 hrs in game

Great gameplay. Great sound. Great design. Great visualising. Incredible drive. It makes me proud for future VR-gaming scene. This game forces you plunge into the world of relaxation and gives you flashbacks to old Quake games. But it’s just a words. Let’s talk about things.

Positive sign:

  • Clear and unerstandable TUTORIAL

  • Full immersion

  • Good graphics

  • Nice mechanics

  • Good balance

Amusing is the fact that the pluses do not need to be specifically disclosed, since they are simply telling about everything right away.

Real player with 3.5 hrs in game

JetX VR on Steam