Apocalypse

Overview

Apocalypse is a 2D helicopter shot'em'up with a multi directional parallax scrolling. Inspired by the movie Apocalypse Now the game takes up the issue of the Vietnam War. The player controls a heavily armed helicopter flying over enemy terrain(which looks in some places like a scene from the aforementioned film because of the cleverly used jungle settings), killing enemy soldiers with a vast array of weapons and destroying their bases, tanks, helicopters and artillery. But most importantly the player has to pick up POW's(prisoners of war) like in Choplifter! and ferry them safe to the home base.

Development

Apocalypse was the original idea of development team Strangeways, who begun the game development in 1990/91. Initially the game ought to be published by Image Works/Mirrorsoft in early 1992 but Image Works/Mirrorsoft went bankrupt in 1991 and the project was disbanded. Subsequently the game development was given in the capable hands of Miracle Games and was then published by Virgin in 1994.

Story

Heavily armed rebel forces have invaded the insignificant island of Majipoor taking hundreds of prisoners, among them the players best buddy. Chosen from one of the elite the mission of the player is to destroy the enemy forces and to find and attempt to blow up the five key enemy bases situated in the dense jungle as well as the battleship which is docked somewhere on the island. But above all the player has to rescue as many prisoners of war(most of whom are scientists and military experts) as possible and of course the best buddy who is being held captive in a ruined temple in the heart of the jungle. Therefor a super charged gunship is at the players disposal and a medical team to take out wounded POWs.

Gameplay

The gameplay starts in your home base to the far right-hand side of a section. Here a new helicopter appears and you can take the chopper up and out into the wild sky above. Every time you loose a chopper you get a new one and you start the gameplay again from the home base. At the beginning three choppers are at your disposal and an extra chopper is given if you complete a level or save all POW's of a section.

The prisoners are dressed in white and most of them are locked away in the many huts scattered throughout the level, so first of all you need to free them using your chopper's machine guns to blow open the huts. Once the POWs are released they will start to run towards the nearest solid ground and if they are not wounded they will wave at you to catch your attention. On this solid ground you can land your chopper and airlift the prisoners back to the homebase. The prisoners are not rescued until the helicopter has deposit them at the home base and you can only carry a maximum of six healthy POW's in the chopper at once.

However, some huts house enemy soldiers who are dressed in green. So if you blow open these huts they will run out and attack your helicopter with rocket launchers and high velocity machine guns, some of them will even attack the prisoners.

Hostages being wounded by friendly or enemy fire and lying on the ground should't be ignored. You can save them by flying back to the home base and landing the chopper near the field hospital. Then a two men paramedic team with a stretcher will automatically board the chopper. Now you can fly back to the POW's and collect the injured ones, but only two wounded prisoners can be carried at once in the helicopter.

The helicopter is armed with an unlimited supply of machine gun ammunition. Other special weapons like firebombs, rockets, homing missiles and mines are limited in supply. The amount of the special weapons is displayed on the right side of the screen by four icons with a number below the icons. Additional amount of special weapons is dropped in on parachutes which can be collected by flying into them.