From: fubar@sequent.com (Jay Vosburgh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: GS2000 Islands & Ice: my opinions
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:05:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Oct15.190540.26715
Organization: Campus Crusade for Cthulhu


	I got the Islands & Ice expansion when it first came out, and
have been playing it a lot, and overall I am very impressed.  I've
been playing GS2000:I&I more than Falcon 3.01 OFT, and I would have to
say that I like I&I more than Falcon.  Let me qualify that by saying
that, in an absolute sense, I don't think I&I is "better" than Falcon
3.01, I'm just personally more fond of helicopter games.

	I&I adds two new theaters, Antartica and the Philippines, and
one new map each for the Central Europe and Persian Gulf theaters.  It
also supplies a mission builder, somewhat more detailed campaigns, and
(from my observations) makes minor adjustments to a number of things.
I'll enumerate each of these below.

	Central Europe gets a city, which has an urban area that is a
square, approximately 1/4 of the map in area, centered in the map.
The buildings don't have a great amount of detail, and you can't
destroy them; they're just background.  Nevertheless, it is quite
different to fly in, and really keeps you on your toes because of the
narrow streets and innumerable hiding places.  Flying over the top can
be unhealthy, too, as there are rooftop defenders.  Using one of the
control setup options that allows for sideways flying is a must.

	The Persian Gulf gets a map that's just chock full of
mountains.  I've only played in this one a couple of times, and it's
pretty good, but not great.  It just requires more advance planning as
far as your routes go, to avoid the numerous cul de sacs.  For the
most part, you can still get away without having to go over things
very much.

	The Antarctic theater is pretty neat.  It adds some special
hazards of its own: whiteouts and magnetic interference that makes
your compass go wild.  Much of the terrain isn't terribly exciting,
mountains and hills that are white but otherwise pretty much the same,
but the ground itself isn't really flat.  You cannot fly around
without changing altitude, as there are gentle rises all over the
place.  Flying at a time compression of more than 4 can be very
dangerous.  There are icebergs in the ocean, too, and they don't
appear on the map.

	My favorite so far is the Philippines theater.  It's a jungle,
and is very crowded.  It is utterly impossible to fly in the
Phillippines without having to fly over obstacles.  For example, all
of the rivers have large tracts of vegitation (~325 feet high) along
their banks that you must go over.  There are "roads" of some sort
that also have the banks of vegitation.  There are small (~.4 km
diameter) circular growths of vegitation, with empty centers.  Some of
them have ground-level entrances, some can only be entered by going
over the top.  The defenders love to hide in these things, especially
something that you must "search and destroy."  The walls of vegitation
everywhere block radar, so you don't know what's on the other side
until you get there.  One map even has a volcano; you can fly right up
and into the glowing crater.  In the Philippines, I've finally found a
need to carry the Hydra "flechette" missiles, due to the high
percentage of enemy infantry and SAM teams (a new unit added for I&I).

	The mission builder is also an excellent addition to the game,
although it does have a few deficiencies.  On the positive side, it
allows you to examine and place whatever defenders are available for
the theater, pretty much where you want.  The mission builder is
stricter about placement than the random mission generator,
specifically, you cannot place units on hills or mountains, which the
random generator will sometimes do.  The builder is pretty easy to use
once you get the hang of it, although at first I found it a little
tricky to manipulate the various units.  I suspect that if I had read
this part of the manual beforehand, it would've been much clearer.  My
main gripe is that the game enforces a rank restriction on access to
the mission builder, you must be of sufficent rank to fly flight
missions (1st Lt, I think).  Missions generated by the builder are
also always flight missions; no singles.

	My primary use of the mission builder hasn't been to make
custom missions (yet), but rather to examine in detail missions that
I've completed.  A new feature of I&I is that you can "export"
missions (which just saves them in a file, giving them the name "Last
Mission"; you can stack up quite a number of Last Missions) from the
same screen that allows you to view your vcr tape.  Unfortunately, you
aren't always allowed to export your mission, and in fact seem to only
be allowed to do generic "flight" missions.  Single, Training and
Campaign missions won't export.  I've found, though, that after
finishing a Campaign mission, if I view the vcr tape and then try to
export the mission, it will then allow it.  I use the export feature a
lot after completing "search" missions where I searched but didn't
find the target, to see just where the heck it was.  Especially in the
Philippines, where things can be very hard to find.  The I&I expansion
also comes with half a dozen custom missions created by the game
designers.  I haven't flown any of these yet, but they are tagged
somehow to prevent you from examining them with the mission builder.

	It seems to me that the campaigns have been improved.  There
is some more variety of missions, and the campaign itself is more
dynamic.  For instance, sometimes HQ will change one of your targets
in midflight.  Sometimes the FARP will come under attack (and be
destroyed if you don't get there in time).  I'd say it's still a notch
below the campaigns of Falcon 3.01, but is definately an improvement.

	I've noticed a number of other changes as well:

	There are new enemy units, and new enemy formations, in both
the new and old theaters.  You gotta watch for those river boats in
Europe now.  Most noteworthy of the new formations is the "Helicopter
Attack Force", which is some number (typically about 6) of enemy
gunships flying in formation.

	The enemies appear to be somewhat smarter, even on "Poor."
Especially the enemy choppers, which seems to be really on the ball.
Very often, the first indication I have that one of these is around is
an incoming missile.  The units in general aren't a great deal
smarter, but they're not the mindless cannon fodder they used to be.
Infantry seems to be tougher to destroy, as well, enough that in areas
with lots of infantry it is worthwhile to carry the Hydra flechette
rockets.

	Enemy weapons also have also changed, e.g., the IR Jammer is
no longer a sure-fire defense against enemy IR missiles.  Judging from
the mission builder, missiles appear to be divided into various
"quailty" levels, and you really can't tell just what the other guy
has.  Enemy weapons also apparently do more damage, and the damage
seems to be more "realistically" placed.  I've been taking a lot of
rotor, cannon, wing and engine hits, and almost no tail rotor hits.
The main rotor seems to be much easier to hit than it used to be.
Firing from near cover and being able to duck back is much more
important than it used to be; it pays to be sneaky.

	Weather is now a real serious concern, especially visibility.
Even the map gets really dark at night in poor visibility.  There also
seems to be some sort of spray around the beaches, and maybe light
rain (?) at other times.  I don't recall seeing this prior to I&I.

	The bonus for using wussier choppers also seems to have gone
up, to the point that (to me) it seems almost right.  It used to be
too low, and you could always get a higher score by loading up an
Apache and blasting everything in sight.  Using the less capable
choppers and getting in and out fast, can also net a good score now.

	I've also found a few things that I don't like, would like to
see, or seem to be bugs:

	I wish the mission builder would let me put units wherever I
wanted to, e.g., on mountains.

	I wish the mission builder was more flexible about specifying
the path of moving enemy units, e.g., have them follow the road down
one of those canyons in the Central Europe or Persian Gulf theaters.
Getting enemies to move very far at all is difficult in the
Phillippines, because it's so crowded.  As it is, the mission builder
only lets you specify a destination, and then either accepts or
rejects it based on whether or not it thinks there is a path to that
location.  It's not very smart about finding paths.  I'd rather be
able to specify something like the waypoints used for friendly
choppers.

	Friendly and enemy ground units should duke it out more than
they do.  For example, I set up a platoon of T-80s to drive through my
base.  They did, and neither the T-80s nor the various allied units
laying around fired a shot.  The friendly ships especially should have
some sort of antiaircraft weapons; I've been attacked by fighter
planes while sitting on the deck of the carrier.

	It's kind of pricey, although not as bad as the Secret Weapons
of the Luftwaffe expansions (which didn't cost as much, but had very
little in them in comparison).  I believe the list price is like
$39.95 (but that could be wrong), I paid about $30.00 and feel that I
got my money's worth.

	Finally, the one bug I seem to have discovered.  If one engine
of a two-engined chopper is destroyed (turned red), your chopper will
have insufficient power to fly.  However, enabling auto-hover will get
you off the ground, for as long as auto-hover is enabled.  Also,
damage to one engine will reduce power, damage to both will reduce it
further, but still allow flight.  Destruction of either engine doesn't
supply enough power to lift off.

	To supply an overall rating, I'd have to say that I&I is a
close second to Falcon 3.01, and just edges out Secret Weapons of the
Luftwaffe.  I'm a big fan of helicopter games, though, so that
probably biases my opinion.  It's still an excellent game, though.

	-J

---
	-Jay Vosburgh, Sequent Computer Systems, Inc; fubar@sequent.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games