It’s always pleasant to revisit something you once bounced off pretty hard, only for you to discover that the passage of time has made you much more receptive to what it has to offer.
Such is the case for me and FTL’s Oids, a game which was relatively low-key in its native America, but which became something of a cult hit when Mirrorsoft brought it across the pond to the UK and Europe.
I did not get on with this game when I was a kid. Now, however, I definitely understand its enduring appeal…
While a whole ton of late ’90s PC games have been updated and rereleased through services like GOG.com and Steam in recent years, one which I haven’t had the opportunity to play for a long time is Maxis’ SimCopter.
A fascinating new angle on Will Wright’s SimCity, SimCopter allowed you to take to the skies above either some predefined cities or your own SimCity 2000 maps and take part in a variety of missions ranging from yelling at speeding motorists to dealing with the aftermath of the notorious and iconic SimCity Disasters. Or indeed, tracking down the secret Apache helicopter, setting half the city on fire and then dealing with the carnage you created yourself in exchange for a fat paycheck.
I absolutely adored SimCopter as a kid — and not just because it had Ride of the Valkyries on the soundtrack — but the fact I 1) can’t find my original boxed copy and 2) probably wouldn’t be able to get it running on my current PC anyway makes me sad. Which is why I was so excited to discover Syscom’s City Crisis for PlayStation 2.
