Hey. I was the lead programmer on SimCopter! Reading thru all these comments -- I Never knew! LOL. We were going to do a SimCopter2 with a more realistic helicopter flight model but EA bought Maxis and it never happened. All resources went into doing the original Sims game...Remember -- this game was developed before 3D graphics cards hit the scene so it was pretty limited vis a vis the graphics were concerned as everything 3D had to be done in software. A lot of the game, especially the graphics was written in Assembler language for best performance. Will Wright and I took a real helicopter flight lesson to research stuff for a possible SimCopter2. Thanks for all the comments from players who loved the game. It was really rushed and unfinished because Maxis absolutely NEEDED to have a game come out for Xmas. There was so much more we wanted to do! And Yes! This game I felt was definitely a precursor for the likes of Grand Theft Auto I thought. I was mainly responsible for the overall gameplay, helicopter controls and the 3D engine written in Assembler, and for importing Sim City 2000 cities into SimCopter.

"It was one of the three games he was working on at the time, one of which was a simulation of the Hindenburg airship, which never came to fruition" I have numerous questions.

"The immense orange ball seen rising from the eastern horizon early this morning is expected to fall slowly to the west some time in the evening. No injuries have been reported, and rumours of panic have been greatly exaggerated." - Sim Copter radio announcement that I remember word for word from when I was a kid.

The thing I remember about this game was, it wouldn't let you walk off the edge of a building, so if you walked to the edge your pilot would just put his hands in the air and go 'AaaaaAAaAA' like he was scared of falling off. Once, I got out of my chopper too close to a phonebox, so I ended up on top of the phonebox. The game counted this as 'being too close to the edge of a building' on all sides, so it wouldn't let me move at all, my guy just stood there on top of that phonebox, waving his arms in the air and loudly FREAKING OUT. In my mind he's still up on that phonebox to this day. Also I'm pretty sure you could turn into a dog?

This is the gold standard of LGR videos. Obscure game, thoroughly researched and demonstrated, with archival footage and news context. Yay! Thanks for sharing it.

I love the idea of a Sim becoming conscious and realising that he's being transported to hospital by the same Maniac who just threw him out of a moving helicopter 😂

I used to work in games journalism from 2006-2011, and every single time I ran into Will Wright at some event or had an interview scheduled with him, the first question I would always ask is "Could you please make a new Sim Copter?" He started anticipating it, eventually. Also you forgot to mention and/or emphasize that the game was capable of converting a 2D-isometric SimCity 2000 map into a fully navigable and destructible 3D environment, with matching buildings and roads and everything else. It was incredibly awesome to be able to take a city you'd been building for weeks or months in SimCity 2000 and suddenly be able to explore it in *3D* in a helicopter or on foot. ALSO, any damage you cause to the city is saved to the file when you close the game, and if you open up that city again in SimCity 2000, the damage (and state) will be persistent. Buildings will be rubble and fires will be burning if you save the game without putting them out first. ALSO, if you use the Apache to blow up the Nuclear power plant, it will explode in an atomic blast and destroy the entire city (which will be reflected in SimCity 2000, as well). A really amazing, remarkable game. I wish we had something similar these days for the new SimCity and/or Skylines, but the game industry just isn't that awesome anymore. This was the real Golden Age of PC gaming.

I remember the microphone in that game.... and putting out fires with a bucket of water for some reason. The pilot guy would also say something like "Attention everyone.... HAVE A NICE DAY", followed by everybody crashing their cars and panicking. This game was weird, but it was also part of my childhood. :)

despite the issues I loved this game as a kid, so many fond memories ... mainly of destroying everything with the apache lol

I remember getting that Easter egg as a kid! I didn't think anything of it then. I didn't realize the guys were kissing, I just thought they were dancing and celebrating. I had no idea about the controversy until now. I really enjoyed SimCopter, I still have my copy somewhere around here.

7:25 All you had to do was follow the damn train SimCopter!

Heh as a kid I remember stumbling across that "gay" glitch a few times. I just said "huh that's weird" and moved on.

If I were ever put into a coma due to unfortunate events they could probably wake me up by playing music from an earlier Maxis game. Man, I need to write that down somewhere so they know!

Does anything good happen after "The people in charge demand [insert unrealistically short development time]"?

Jerry Martin is an amazing composer. The Sims Makin' Magic was always my favorite, I love to put it on during fall and walk around the forest...

Wow, Clint looks fabulous in those aviators!

THAT WALKING ANIMATION IS THE BEEEEST

SimCopterOne, reporting heavy traffic. SimCopterOne, reporting heavy traffic. SimCopterOne, reporting heavy traffic. (And those aliens. They sound like guinea pigs.)

i wanted this game so badly. I use to play the demo over and over again.

One of my favourite games as a kid once I figured out how the hell the controls worked. Did this game have any sort of 'You Win' screen? I remember getting to the aliens speaking, but nothing happened after that. I remember reading somewhere that Will Wright found the speedo men genuinely funny. Shame the soundtrack never got a higher fidelity release of any kind.

GTA: Sim City Stories?

I used to love this game as a child, even though it was already "outdated" when I got it (I was born in 96). I even had the original "easter egg" version, although I never really realized it wasn't "supposed" to be part of the game. Great game for sure, heres hoping it will be playable again sometime soon.

LOVED this game... and the music. Hell I made my own cities and was thrilled to fly in it.

Rest in peace maxis, Rest in peace... I want maxis back we need them back. Will wright is the grandfather of creativity and im 13 and I still like there 90's games... ; (

I loved these games. I had all three, City, copter, and streets. I thought it was super cool playing in your own built cities using streets and copter.

"Lazy" game reviews... why, because you don't script horrible comedy bits, bring all of your friends over to play characters and spend more time acting than actually reviewing games? Sir, you are a rare breed... someone who cares more about describing the game in detail than getting over on KZfaq. It's just amusing to me that you call your reviews lazy when they are more comprehensive than most.

Lol, when he's walking, it looks like something out of an Atari 2600 game!! ;o)

Jacques was trying to add some humor to the game, but eventually his boss was Servin him a pink slip.

I remember listening to the Ride of The Valkyries for the first time in my life while playing this game, I called it "the SimCopter music" for quite some time. It used to be pretty heavy on graphics too, the potato I had almost couldnt handle it.

I remember my sister held a sim out the window and was like "wow that's a weird face." So I tried to do that with another sim only she dove for the mouse and I acidentally threw them out of the copter. She was like "YOU MURDERER!"

I remember this game. I had so much fun with it as a child, and even went through the trouble to figure out how to get my city on the school's "educational" macs that had sim city into Sim city 2000 on the one PC the school had... all for the sole purpose of getting the city onto a floppy so I can spend my days flying around my city in my Sim Copter.

This was one of my all time favorites. Making my own radio station BLEW MY YOUNG MIND! You could drop wav files into the station folder.

This and NFS High Stakes were my early PC gaming Childhood games! Great game

The only sunglasses I've ever owned in my life came from SimCopter. I'm awesome.

I loved this game as a kid. Even today there's just something about being able to build something in a game and then play a different kind of game within that thing - if that makes sense - that I still find incredibly compelling.

One of the games that kept my love for the Sim series. I remember buying this at a garage sale in Dallas, and loved playing it any time I could. Great review!

There was also a UFO flying around which you could shoot down with the Apache and get 1000 bucks. This was one of my favourite games in my childhood

"Dollhouse sounds pretty lame." ...That eventually became the Sims... "I take that back."

addicted to these videos

Thank you for covering this game! It was one of my most favorite PC games, next to Lode Runner: The Legend Returns and Outpost 2: Divided Destiny. Making a map in the Sim City urban renewal kit and then flying through it, or driving through it w/ Streets of Sim City was an absolute dream come true as a kid growing up. I was pleased to discover that I have one of the original game CD's with the infamous dudes. I've been trying to get it to run in a VM for a while, but there's nothing like running it back in the day on Windows 98 SE on an old Compaq Presario.

Life Lesson #1: Never work with EA.

oh my god Nostalgia. I LOVED this game as a kid lmfao. I remember literally hurting people with tear gas. I'm mad I didn't find this sooner. This and Dune 3000 were my favorite old games.

Had this as a kid. Along with a plethora of other Sim titles. Simcopter was the only one I could get to run, never understood how to do anything, never passed missions, just walked around the city with that incredible walk animation for hours. Fly around for no reason. I loved every second of it.

Watching this reallllly takes me back. I still have this game collecting dust somewhere.

One of my favorite games as a kid. It was strange too. Me and my friend understood it was "ugly" and clunky but were able to look past its flaws. Our favorite part was when you had to disperse the crowds and the pilot would say "Leave or you could die, or worse!". As kids we thought that was pretty assuming and often wondered what was worse than dying.

I was waiting for this one since you mentioned it in the Streets of SimCity video :3

I bought this specific game around 2001 at a comp USA that was going out of business, but it's way long gone now. So many good memories!

dude. the last time i have seen gameplay footage of simcopter i was a kid playing it in the 90s! i have incredibly vauge memories of it and i dont remember if it was just the demo or not but it always stuck with me because i remember it being so much fun. seeing this video took me wayyyy wayyy back. thank you so much. im gonna have to find an older pc so i can play all these games again

No mention of the ability to cause a nuclear meltdown :(

0:45 "and help the police keep your pesky Sims under control."

Oh man I used to play this a lot in a great manche controller. And even loaded a Sim City map or two... I Didn't see you telling about it but actually the Military Chopper is used to try to hunt down the aliens that comes randomly.

I played the demo for this way back in the day and I loved it. It was an open world game before open world games were a thing. I especially loved the radio station that played classical music, very relaxing.

This is one of those games that I had super fun with as a kid. Then I played it like a year ago, and its horrid :P. But still the fun memories and playing in my own cities back in the day was still a blast. Just not now. Tho my original boxed copy is long gone and worn down. Instead I have a dvdcover version that was re-released and made by Dice multimedia back in 2000 ish.

I loved this game, haha. It was the closest thing to a 3D GTA game you could find in the 90's.

Oh man i remember playing this as a kid. Being able to fly around a city you created in simcity was SO cool to me!!

I played this all day everyday for a solid 7 months as a kid. This takes me back.... thank you, sir

+1 for mentioning LHX.. almost forgot how much time I spent playing that awesome game :] ..

Nostalgia overload, I loved Sim copter, I used make maps of where I lived then destroy them in Sim Copter. Place down a nuclear power plan and take the Apache to it then watch the whole word blow up, or pick up Sims fly as high as you could then drag their faces to the middle of the screen and watch them fall the their deaths. Totally normal right? I never knew about that gay easter egg though. Thanks for the great video!

What I enjoy about this channel is I find out about games I never knew existed. Some of the games I've found out about I plan to try one day if I find copies cheap enough. Good job 👍

im really glad that you decided to make this review

Definitely one of my favorite childhood games. Maxis made very good use of their EXTREMELY limited graphical capabilities, and although it didn't look AMAZING(not even back then) it was still satisfying to look at due to it's odd, funny graphics and well-fit sound effects.

This game was my childhood :D

My grandparents had this game back in 95. I have fond memories coming over and playing this, along with Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Since neither of these games would run on our 486, I loved going over and playing these on their Pentium machine. It was also one of my Grandfather's favorites, who passed away in 97, may he reset in peace.

Oh man. This is giving me flashbacks to elementary school. I love this game back then. I was terrible, but I loved playing it. Good times. Thanks for doing a review on this.

"Aha", I thought, "I have this game!" And I ran off to my game closet #8, where I dug around a bit and finally turned up... "HeliCops". Still shrinkwrapped though. Anybody have any idea if that one is any good?

A whole city full of half naked men making out? Sounds like my kinda city. lol

That menu music makes my soul stir in a good way. I just love how it sounds and makes me feel nostalgic despite never owning this game.

Ah, memories. Spent many an hour working my way up that flight line. Thanks for the post!

I loved it as a kid. One of the first games I owned.

so many hours in this game. so many hours...

I gave another shot to searching this game after 7-8 years.Pity nothing comes up when you query SimCity2000 helicopter, but so glad I finally found this game that captured a very happy period in my childhood. I was 7 when I first played this in 2001 and as I watched memories resurfaced in a flash as if they never left. Heartfelt thanks man

I remember this game. I was a huge fan of SimCity2000 and when this came out I got it as a gift from my dad. I remember having a PC just able to play it and was so excited. And then I immediately crashed the first helicopter because I was bad and I couldn’t afford a new copter so I just gave up on it and returned to SimCity2000.

you're great!

I remember this game! This was the one that destroyed Maxis as an independent game company!

It was great, Andy Bichlbaum was on Late Night with Seth Meyers the other night and he and Igor Vamos were ask about their big controversies, and it was great to know where his Sim Copter story came from before watching it, and screaming at the TV "I Know that guy!"

I always wanted to play this but I'm glad I had me some flight simulator 98 lol. Badass video man. Brought me back!

I'm hoping for a sequel: SimClopter. What happens when you merge horse and helicopter? Heliclopter.

10:20 - "was" able :'( Damn it, EA, stop killing off good names like that.

Loved this game as a kid. The best feature was loading your own Sim City 2000 maps and then flying around your creations was such a great immersive experience.

I remember playing them demo a lot. There was the Ride of the Valkyiries playing and when you completed them demo, a band orchestra was playing at the landing pad. Good times!

We need a Sim Copter for Sim City 4.

Lol the aviator scene

the nostalgia takes me back to the days darn it

I grew up playing this game, I never did play the Streets of Sim City, but I ran SimCopter just fine. I loved importing my cities into it, so much fun! It is also why I am very excited for newer games like Flashing Lights.

Does anybody remember a mod that replace all the sims voices ? It basically turned everybody to talk in English. The funniest is when they saw the UFO and you heard “what the f*** is that.” That was the only naughty word in the audio files.

FWIW if you have the latest patched version of the game, you could run it in GLide accelerated mode if you have a 3dfx card or wrapper. It involved using a command line switch. The problem was it was basically alpha quality, there was no main menu and it was hard coded to load one of the included cities and not much more. That GLide mode later found its way into Streets of SimCity.

I spent so many hours on this game, using my first joystick for PC, Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro. It took me a while to make it work, I was young and clueless, but when it worked it was fantastic! I still have the PC, joystick and SimCopter too, but I'll never fire it up to see how it has aged. Nostalgia feels will do...

Used to play with this crazy joystick and had a blast playing this & Star Wars Tie Fighter. Good memories.

So basically this game, if it was combined with Streets of SimCity, would become Babies First GTA, complete with a Hot-Coffee easter egg? :D

you have an amazing narrator voice.. i just love it man,. keep up the videos. do alot more. (dont just do games. do tops tens. do fail videos. do lets plays.

bro i used to play this game so much when i was a kid, thanks for the memories!!!

LOL, funny video, Clint! Love all the historical background info! :D

Hope so as well, SimCopter was one of my favorite games growing up. Don't think I had the version with the gay easter egg though.

I Am The CEO of McDonnel Douglas.. 123456789. Heheheheh. Who knowz whats up (;

I still cant wait for the AOL retrospect of your childhood. If I ever see a copy of SimCopter, I'll check for version "A" on the CD.

Your voice is just so soothing. Your videos are like sweet cream butter.

its GTA 3 before GTA 3!!!!!!

Throw people out of the helicopter? Awesome, they made a Pinochet Simulator!

I loved this game when I was in elementary school; I still think back on it! I loved everything from putting out fires and yelling at traffic jams to disperse, to (i think using a cheat) to be able to morph into a dog and run across the city or call in an apache helicopter to go cause havok inbetween resucing people from capsized boats. Great times!

Oh man this was on of my fav games as a kid growing up along with the streets of sim city.