Helicopter Mission - English version [BETA]
 

Helicopter Mission is an educational German version of Desert Strike without guns. So it's not exactly the most compelling game in the world, but it does offer a few minutes of entertainment and it's in English for the first time.

https://i.imgur.com/xFVXHwo.png

https://i.imgur.com/YAT6Qt7.png

In the zone - consider this version a BETA, there's likely to be a few glitches and misalignment issues. One of the annoyances is the "quiz" sections are picked randomly, so it's a little hard to properly check the text. In any case, we're happy to fix and major issues with the translation and the occasional nitpick here and there, but we didn't want to sink too much more time into it.

It was a collaboration between myself and Playaveli, with myself ripping/reinserting the strings and Playaveli doing the translation work.
Playaveli's done an amazing job - translating literally the entire game in a single night, including updating and modernising facts and figures.


Edit: Forgot the level passwords. I'll include a brief description of each level too.

1: Any Password
- Just hover over the pad

2: FALLSCHIRM
- Drop off paratroopers. Be careful not to let them out too low!

3: SANITÄTSDIENST (use Shift+" to enter Ä)
- Accident. Deliver a medic to the accident scene and then the injured parties back to the hospital.

4: KONTURENFLUG
- Fly under radar in hostile territory

5: LUFTTRANSPORT
- Drop off eight cargo boxes to eight destinations. This one's frankly bit of a pain due to the size of the map and the repeated flights you'll need to make if you fail a cargo drop.

6: LUFTRETTUNG (Search and rescue)
- Fetch a medic from the hospital and search the sea for people to rescue.

7: NOTHILFE (Flood)
- I didn't play this one too much but it seems to be like a combination of the last two - deliver sandbags and rescue civilians.

Thanks so much, earok! Was fun to do that. Adress and phone number of German army HQ in the game‘s contact menu have been updated to current ones...:)
Converted German measure formats to English ones (mph, lbs etc.). Game is really worth trying.

Great! I have been owning the original package of this game for many years and I always been regretting I can not understand it. Thank you.

:great

Nice work :) I will try it.

Ah, great! Hope you enjoy.

It is a rather unique game and historically important because it is, to my knowledge, the only game made as an advertising and recruiting tool for the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). Back then, this seemed to be en vogue with similar games like Bifi (sausage snack) and even one for the Federal Department for Environmental Protection (Das Erbe). So, basically we had our own version of America's Army years before that game was released amidst a mild controversy.

Thank you

WHDLG
At kick 3.1 intro screen black but game work well after. No problem with kick 1.3

I like all desert strike clone, nice game, thanks Earok ! and Playaveli :)

Nice work earok and Playaveli :great

...and for anyone wanting an .ADF, please see attached.

Hopefully I've renamed properly according to the correct TOSEC naming convention :p

Are the units selectable or fixed??

They are fixed. Do you need an English version with the OG units (metric)?

Eep, I see what you mean now. I hadn't actually seen the intro logos before triggering them accidentally just before. I wonder why they only show under certain conditions..

Cool! or should I say Supa !

Photoshopped the cockpit (see earok's initial post) to match English translation.
"Höhe" --> "ALT." (altitude) "Punkte" --> "Score"

earok ripped it out of the game, hopefully changes can get back into it. :great

Nice ! :great

Interesting, a game i have never seen before, thx for the work !!!

Just a heads up - a second version is coming. There'll be a few more sundry fixes to text (though if you've spotted anything yourself that needs to be fixed, please let me know), a language selection menu, also we've translated the cockpit UI to be English as well.

Ok! This is done - unless anyone reports any serious issues I'll post to the earok.net hacks collection in the weekend (this will be number #13!). But for now, the 'final' version is in the zone.

What's new from last time:

- ADF (based on DamienD's upload).
- Cockpit has been translated.
- We had bit of a back and forth discussion about the metric v imperial thing. Rather than creating an options menu to select at the start, Playaveli suggested keeping the units in metric - except for personal measurements (height and weight). That's the solution we've gone with.
- A raft of minor tweaks here and there to iron out as many text glitches as I could find.

The only problem is... it is such a BAD GAME it is not worth playing :(