One of the most original - and most overlooked - entries in Maxis' blockbuster SimCity series, SimCopter is an interesting and fun simulation that lets you get up close and personal with your own city. Games Domain's review says it all:
"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 from 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 30 cities of its own. Should you already own a copy of Sim City 2000 (and lets face it, who doesn't), you can load any city you have created into SimCopter and fly through 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, you are flying through a city you have created yourself (or at least downloaded from one of the numerous SimCity 2000 web sites to be found on the net).
There is no career to follow but a number of sliders allows you to choose what kinds of missions and their difficulty will be offered to you. There are nine types of mission in SimCopter ranging from the humdrum (clearing traffic jams) to the heroic (plucking sims from 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 of life as a chopper pilot. All you need is the cash to buy them.
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 be able to lay your hands on something far more suitable for putting down riots.
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 in the game. 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. Naturally you lose points if you actually let go. 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 pushed forward on the joystick to accelerate forward, pulled back to decelerate or fly backwards and moved the stick left and right to turn left and right. Two buttons or keys controlled rising and falling and if these buttons weren't pressed, then the altitude remained the same, no matter how fast the chopper was going or what maneuvers it was performing. In addition, pushing another button allowed the machine to slide from side to side without turning in true DOOM straffing style.
To a realism freak like myself, this might have proved to be a damming failure in the game 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 provided a carefully graded long term challenge and in addition offers the player 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.
Review By HOTUD
English 
German 
French 
Comments and reviews
There is a game called SKYSAVIOR on Steam and it is pretty a remake of this old classic.
I used to play this wayyyy back in the day on m y moms Dell tower and xp laptop. Its truly funny seeing it now with the advancements we've made in flight sims, its still a good nostalgia game for me
loved it back in the day
Hi, my name is Raphael and I'm a game developer. I've created a game inspired by Simcopter. You can check out the demo version by searching for SKYSAVIOR Helicopter Services on Steam.
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I just downloaded after 20 y after last played with it and don't know yet but some older games need to be allowed by extra opts from Windows Defender setts.
French version :
https://archive.org/details/sim-copter_202111
From at least Windows 10 21H2 and onwards this patch is no longer applicable. You can patch and install like normal but as soon as you hit 'dispatch' something will flash briefly and quietly error out without any warnings.
I was an AVID player back in the day! this game %110 inspired me to become an army helicopter pilot!! Cant believe you guys got it working So much love and thanks!!!!
How high up on hardware can you technically go before this game becomes too unstable/starts crashing to desktop frequently?
"ISO Version 1.2 Classics" here is the most complete image of the game CD and comes with the latest version of the game executable - 1.1.0.4. But there is known unfixed bug in version 1.1.0.4. - riot missions indicators are not displayed. Riot missions start at level 8 difficulty in the campaign mode. Without the indicators, it is difficult to find and combat riots, while several uncombated riots can generate multiple fire spots, traffic jams and other problems. So it is recommended to use the previous version of the executable - 1.1.0.3 (Patch 1.02). It can be downloaded at the same page as the patcher (http://krimsky.net/patchers/scx_dl.html). Just replace the executable in the SIMCOPTER folder (and patch and install it by the patcher), it will use the same game resources as version 1.1.0.4. But you will have to do a safe load (load while holding Ctrl pressed) of any saves previously created with version 1.1.0.4.
A few tips. Criminals can get stuck inside buildings, they will still shoot at your helicopter (and damage it), but there will be no chance of getting them outside and finishing the relevant missions. You will be gradually losing points for criminals being on loose or committing new and new crimes. Lost points can be compensated by new points earned by completing other missions which will be generated despite the presence of unfinished missions with stuck criminals. But several stuck criminals may drain points too fast. If this is the case, save the game (if necessary), then do a safe load - press Ctrl before pressing Open and hold it until the game loads. Safe load will reset your location (put you on the base), refuel and repair your helicopter and cancel any pending missions, it will keep all the points earned in the current city (by the moment of saving), as well as all your money, helicopters and equipment. If you get stuck in buildings (during medevac, for example), try pressing E to get back into your helicopter even if it is more than a few steps away.
"ISO Version 1.2 Classics" here comes with the latest version of the game executable - 1.1.0.4. Unpack the .nrg file (an image of the game CD) using 7-zip (or another suitable program) to a folder of your liking (there will be requests for overwriting files during unpacking - allow them). Then use a patcher - SimCopterX (http://krimsky.net/patchers/scx_dl.html) - to be able to run the game under Windows 10 x64 (in my case), without installation, without a mounted CD image, and at normal speed (slowed down on modern PCs). Just press "patch" and direct it to SimCopter.exe in the SIMCOPTER folder, then press "install" to register the game with the patcher for starting it (or you can manually start the game by running the patched executable).
When you download SimCopterX from simcopter.net - the "simcopter.exe" file should be in directory that you created and in a easy location that you remember (ie SimCopter)". Open SimCopterX, locate the SimCopter directory, then select "simcopter.exe" to run the patcher.
Which file exactly should I be using the patch *on*?
Great, thanks to those that participated in making this and patching it. Will tru now and keep posted :)
triying to install simcopter on my acer windows 10-11 saying that my dsktop computer wont accsept the disk.how do i download it from the internet...
To make this game work on Windows 10 and 11 download SimCopterX from simcopter.net - Be sure to extract all the files from the ISO into a directory of your naming (ie SimCopter), then run the SimCopterX to patch the game.
How do I apply a patch to this game?
Download this original game and patch it with "Sim Copter X" here:
http://simcopter.net/
A patch made for modern PCs. Upping the resolution/ratio, fixing the crazy frame rate The game runs way, WAY too fast without the patch. Causing it to consistently crash.
There was a lot of love that went into it. They also made one for Streets of Simcity!
Game keeps crashing on me. Using Windows10. Patches don't seem to help? I just want to play the game I used to love without the game crashing.
Downloads are capped reaaaaaaly slow!
Thank you for uploading the game and thank you for fixing the patches. Once again, we can play classic games on newer computers :)
Deep in the mountains of Volcano, is an apache helicopter, where you can terrorize the town to your deepest desires BWAHAHAHA . . . .
Windows 10 patcher has been released open source at http://simcopter.net/
No more janky fixes to get it running!
I managed to run the game in Windows 10 using the 20MB version and the EVGA Precision software, locking fps to 60.
It doesnt have the radio stations and songs though.
To add the radio and songs, I downloaded the ISO file, mounted it with WinCDEmu and just copied the "sound" folder to the simcopter folder, replacing all files there. It worked! :)
Got it working on my Win10 laptop! Just run in compatibility mode for Win95, 640x480 screen resolution, and a CPU grabber to keep it from crashing. The radio .wav files are corrupted in this batch, which is disappointing because that was the best part about this game
SimCopter On Windows 10 (VERY EASY)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpZ7lguJdxk
EVGA Precision XOC Link:
https://www.evga.com/precisionxoc/
limit frame rate to 60
Wait I'm confused. Do I run this on an emulator or something? How do I get this to run on Windows 10?
F*kng legend. if it's do not work on win 10, Still have old pc parts like intel p4 cpu, ddr ram etc. Fucking gonna build a old pc and I would install windows 95/98 to play this.
Element of my life
Cant for the life of me get it to work in any way on windows 10.Tried DosBox,compatibily settings,etc.Any one have a solution?
ok if i link a clip of simcopter in 3dfx (demo)mode?
https://youtu.be/-0InslyFwnk
you will find a link in the comment for a special simcopter.iso file wich contains my career mod and other extras as glidewrappers to run the 3dfx demo ot dxwnd to manage compatibility problems.
It's still a great game.
Guys, can anybody please build a fix for windows 10? I know somebody did streets of simcity, army men, and other older pc games. Please help us out to make this classic game work on the newer systems.
Much love
Inspired my young son to become a helicopter pilot! For a good decade, he refused to spend money on anything, insisting on saving the money to buy a helicopter--if you played the game you know you can get one for a mere 2000. We were devastated when the Win98 completely fell apart and we discovered that it did not run on the OS du jour.
Unlike many games, you had many different missions you could set, then when flying you could ignore them or not. Makes no pretense of simulation or fluing skill, though coaxing a damaged bird along does take its own kind of skill. They had "radio" tracks of classical and jazz playing, interspersed with with stupid commercials.
Impossible to relate how cool this game is.
We need this game
OMG God this is a game i played the hell out of growing up. How many times remember throwing some annoying passenger out of my chopper, and then of course....now they are injured so get to go pick them back up and either do it again for fun or deliver their puking butt to the hospital then throw them out..
Another fun thing was at the start before you have a harness, trying to rescue capsized boat.....what do you mean you cant swim.......
Absolute best game growing up. So much nostalgia.
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.