Search And Rescue 2 Review - By William "BBall" Ball Page 1 of 2
"Search and Rescue (SAR) is one of the Coast Guard's
oldest missions. Minimizing the loss of life, injury, property damage
or loss by rendering aid to persons in distress …has always been a Coast
Guard priority." Coast Guard SAR homepage.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday…." Those words are spine chilling and terrifying
to anyone that's ever heard them uttered in real life. To quote the Airman's
Information Manual-Pilot/Controller Glossary: "MAYDAY: The international
radiotelephony distress signal. When repeated three times, it indicates
imminent and grave danger, and that immediate assistance is requested."
In the vernacular of the moment…the shit has just hit the fan. I've heard
it used, and I've actually said it myself a time or two in the last twenty-seven
years. Not good, and whether you're talking in the air, or on the sea,
the folks that come to your assistance are heroes…period.
With all that said, why not make a flight sim that models this benevolent
behavior? Why do most all of the rotorcraft sims model the down and dirty,
armed to the teeth, metal and noise, killing machines? I can't answer
the last question (any psychologists present?), but I can tell you that
a Scandinavian company answered the first one…and they did it the first
time back in 1997. It was called Search and Rescue, and it was from an
outfit by the name of InterActive Vision A/S. This will be the second
in the series (hence the 2 in the title). The first was pretty ambitious,
modeling twelve (that's right, I said 12) different helicopters in the
SAR environment. They were as diverse as the twin rotor CH 47 Chinook,
to the almost gnat like (in comparison) Hughes MD 500. Although by today's
visual standards, it looks a bit "arcady"; it was fun and at times very
challenging. SAR2 aims to capture that audience once again, and has been
on the store shelves in Europe for several weeks (U.S. release in October
I've been told).
O.K., enough background, let's ask the questions that need to be asked.
What do we get for our hard earned money here? How many helo types, where
will I fly, what kind of missions, does it model stinky weather, and
will it fit into the "hard core" cubby hole of rotorcraft flight sims?
All of these I'll answer in a minute. However, I guess the biggest question
for me (and you) might be; "Why should I (a military helo enthusiast)
care about flying around saving people and property? Why not leave that
to the "do gooders", my thing is putting steel on target…you know, making
things into junk." Well, I guess the only way to answer that question
is to fly it, eh?
I always seem to start by getting into the documents. I guess that comes
from attending too many aircraft ground schools. After all, we end up
doing the "book" thing for weeks sometime before we actually strap on
the airplane (or simulator), so I guess I'm just a creature of habit.
Opening the box, out fell the manual, the keycard, and the CD (maybe
a registration thingy or two, but I always ignore those). The manual
is neither large and "hard core" looking, nor is it a little wimpy thing
that looks like it belongs with the "Barbie's Riding Club" game. It's
55 or so softbound pages of generally good information. It's a bit dis-jointed,
but find me a manual that's not.
It talks you through "Getting Started", meaning what the system requirements
are, how to use the auto-play function of the CD (man, if you're having
trouble doing that, then maybe you should take up gardening), and then
it gives you a couple of pages under the heading "Quick start flight
manual". The intention here is to get your rear-end in the air as soon
as possible. I'm not a "Quick Start" kinda guy I guess. I've never been
big on jumping in "feet first" without a little preparation, but I guess
that's just me.
Back to the manual. The next area to occupy plenty of print concerns
the menus and/or screens involved. It makes a good effort explaining
how to navigate around the different menus, and there are several of
them. Next it presents you with an area called, "During a mission", which
basically explains the gameplay and the in-flight part of SAR2. These
break down into explanations of the camera angles (lots of them…ie, directly
above, directly below, etc), and how both the missions and a campaign
should "flow". In the section called "Flight Area", it details how the
sim uses 10 small landscapes (20 X 20 Km) to cover the action; thus allowing
for lots of ground detail. To get around the fact that most missions
start in one area and "rescue" in another, the designers threw in an
ingenious little thing called "Time Jump". You can either activate it
yourself with the "L" key (three parameters must be met first: flying
faster than 40 KIAS, the next waypoint is in another area, and you're
facing in that general direction), or once approaching the edge of the
area you are currently flying in, you will be given a "verbal" warning
that you need to time jump, and if you ignore it…it does it for you.
I found I really liked this a lot. The first time I read a mission briefing
that included the flight time as "106 minutes", I almost feinted. "You
mean I have to sit here and watch the world go by for 30 minutes before
and after the actual rescue? Not this cowboy. Time jump is cool; try
it, you'll like it.
Next we find ourselves in a section outlining the ins and outs of "USCG
Procedures". It's packed with some good info on all the different types
of missions you'll be finding yourself performing. And since we're talking
about them, here they are: Land and pickup using stretcher / Land and
deliver / Land on object and deliver / Direct hoist deployment of RS
(rescue swimmer) / Radio inspection (no, you're not at Radio Shack looking
over the new boom-boxes…you are inspecting vessels for the U.S. Customs,
then radioing them with your findings) / Hoist object up from target
/ Hoist object down to target / Free fall or sling deployment / and finally,
Free flight. Fairly detailed stuff here, good reading.
After spending a page giving you technical data about the HH-65, you
move on to the bread and butter areas of actually flying the machine.
They are called: "In the cockpit" (explanations of the gauges, etc.)
"Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics", "Flying the Dolphin", "Navigation",
"Flying in the Arcade Mode" (yes, it has one) and "Flying without the
AFCS" (automatic flight control system). Finally, we finish with "Trouble
Shooting", "Glossary" and "Credits". The whole enchilada can be read
and digested in about the time it takes to consume one or three "good"
beers. Not tons of stuff to learn like weapons, radar modes, tactics,
etc., and I found that a bit refreshing. Again, it's not a great manual,
but it's not awful….like most every flight sim manual… it's somewhere
in between.
Let's throw in the CD and see what we got here. At the Main Menu, you'll
find four areas to choose from (plus of course, the required "Quit" selection).
They are Single Mission, Campaign, Options and Helicopter Info. Let's
start with the easiest one to navigate (because there is no navigation),
and that would be the Helicopter Info. Just one screen of technical information
regarding the HH-65 Dauphin. Which, by the way, answers one of the questions
from above. As a flight crewmember for the United States Coast Guard,
you'll be handed the keys to only one type of machine…the Aerospatiale/Eurocopter
HH-65 Dauphin (or as they call it here, the Dolphin). Once you click
on this page, you get a cool little 3-D HH-65 spinning around while you
read about it's Max Gross Weight, Max Hoist Weight, Max Range…etc. (again,
you get this info in the manual also).
At the Options menu, you can configure three things…Graphics, Sound and
Control. You don't do the Video Card, screen resolution, etc at the Graphics
screen, you just set the sliders for things like Landscape Detail, Object
Distance, Tree Detail, Building Density and basic "on/off" selections
for Lens Flare and Poles. So where do you select the vid. card, screen
resolution and color depth? You do it EVERY time the simulation loads.
The first thing you are going to see every time you run this software
is the "Start Up Box". Here you make the above selections (plus you have
the ubiquitous Install Direct X 7, and Uninstall Game buttons); you make
them, and that's it for all eternity, right? Well, not so fast. It seems
that ALMOST every time I loaded this to run, I had to RESET the color
depth, screen resolution, and video card choice to my liking (it shows
the default 600 X 800, 16 bps, etc settings)….not the end of the world,
but a true pain in the ass.
At the Sound arena, you can adjust the volume for Voice, Sfx and Music.
Pay attention to the Voice setting, for this becomes pretty important
once in the cockpit. You'll be hearing the Co-Pilot, and/or Flight Mechanic
in the cabin, tell you things you'll need to know, i.e., don't leave
the rescue area until the F/O tells you "ready for forward flight", or
don't get set to lower the rescue device until you hear from the Flt.
Mechanic "deploy basket/sling/litter" (he'll inform you which one to
use), and if you deploy the wrong device, the rescue won't take place.
