Simcopter

The player can convert a city from SimCity 2000 , which will be displayed in 3D graphics, and control a rookie pilot who receives his own helicopter. He must perform various missions, such as rescuing sims from a burning building or a sinking ship, arresting criminals, controlling riots and evacuating wounded sims to nearby hospitals. Successfully completing missions, the player receives a reward in the form of money that he can spend on upgrading and buying new, faster and more advanced helicopters, thanks to which new missions will be available to him, such as extinguishing a fire with a water gun or dispersing a crowd with tear gas. If a player unsuccessfully fulfills missions, then he, on the contrary, pays fines.

According to Will Wright , the chief game designer, SimCopter is the first attempt at Maxis to create an extensive game world, conventionally referred to as the "Universe", where at the same time there is a metropolis and small people with their own intelligence live in it. However, in the process of developing the game, the developers came to the conclusion that such a world with current technologies is extremely difficult to create and it requires large financial costs, so the SimCopter game cannot be called a successful result ^[1] .

The critic of GameSpot magazine Mark East in his 1996 review called the game a real surprise for SimCity 2000 fans, because now they have the opportunity to contemplate their own city in 3D. On the other hand, Mark criticized the quality of the graphics, which in some places looks frankly careless, although, in his opinion, this is the only drawback in the game, the rest - the gameplay and sound accompaniment - is made at the highest level ^[2] .

In the early copies of the game on the streets, one could notice a mass gathering of people who were wearing only red swimming trunks, danced with the police and kissed each other, and on their chest were painted bright red nipples . Such people are called "Himbo". At the same time, the crowd could be clearly seen at a long distance and in bad weather. It was soon found out that the " Easter egg " was added to the game by game designer Jacques Servin, expressing his protest in response to the "unbearable working conditions" in Maxis studio ^{[3] [4]} . As a result, Maxis immediately fired the game designer and temporarily discontinued the game, skipping the winter season, and Himbo was removed from new copies of the game. This caused a protest among members of the ACT UP organization and gay activists , who called for a boycott of the Maxis studio games ^[5] . Later, RTMark took responsibility for Khimbo and included SimCopter along with 16 other games in the list of “creative subversion” ^[6] .

• SimCopter on GameFAQs