"SimCopter puts the player in the role of a jobbing helicopter pilot seeking a living by moving from city to city existing on the meager payments they receive for such deeds as plucking citizens off the roofs of burning buildings and suppressing riots. As it says prominently on the SimCopter box, Sim City 2000 is not required to play SimCopter as the game comes with thirty cities of its own. Should you already own a copy of Sim City 2000 (and let's face it, who doesn't), you can load any city you have created into SimCopter and explore it to your heart's content. There are two modes of play. In the Career mode, you fly through SimCopter's own cities trying to earn enough points to proceed to the next city where tougher tasks will await you. When you move from city to city, you take all your helicopters and cash with you. There are ten levels of difficulty, and the player has the option of progressing to the next level of difficulty or moving to another city at the same difficulty level as their present city at the end of the level. In User mode, on the other hand, the cities are custom-built and there is no career to follow but a number of sliders allow you to choose what kinds and difficulty of missions will be offered to you.

There are nine types of missions in SimCopter ranging from the humdrum (clearing traffic jams) to the heroic (plucking sims off the top of speeding trains) and the fascist (putting down riots). Obviously special equipment will be needed for many of these tasks but luckily there is a shop in your home hanger which can provide you with all the necessities. You start your career with the smallest chopper in the game, a dinky three-seater with the carrying capacity of a gnat. Soon, though, as the money comes rolling in, you will be able to trade it in for bigger and better things. There are eight helicopters on offer in the hanger but find yourself a military base somewhere in your city and you may find those riots a cinch.

The gameplay in SimCopter is absorbing and satisfying, but what makes the game a bit special is all the little extra touches Maxis has seen fit to include. Tired of a passenger? Drag them to the main screen using the mouse and you can throw them out. Do this several hundred feet up in the air and as you drag them, a look of terror comes over their features and their hair stands on end. Fly low over the hills which surround the city and you will see that they teem with wild life. The adverts on the radio are highly entertaining, many of them taking sly digs at other Sim games and the comments which emerge from the chopper's load hailer can sometimes be a bit shocking.

SimCopter actually has a fairly detailed flight model which models things like the effects of having a large bucket full of water suspended 50 feet below your helicopter pretty well. What was drastically simplified was the control system. Basically, you push forward on the joystick to accelerate, back to decelerate or fly backwards and left and right to turn. Two buttons or keys control rising and falling and if these buttons aren't pressed, the altitude remains the same, no matter how fast the chopper is going or what maneuvers it's performing. In addition, pushing another button allows the machine to slide from side to side without turning in true DOOM style. To a realism freak like myself, this might have proved to be a damning failure but after about five minutes of playing, I found that I didn't care. The game was challenging enough as it was and if a challenge was required, I could always try flying everywhere with a full tank of water.

For the dedicated sim player looking for something a little bit different or the action fiend looking for a breaking from endless mindless slaughter, SimCopter has a lot to offer. It is a well thought-out polished product which provides a carefully graded long-term challenge and the chance to fly through their own creations." All in all, a fun game which is much better than Streets of Sim City which came out a year earlier.