Iron Helix

Genre: Adventure

Release Year: 1993

Developer: Drew Pictures

Publisher: Spectrum Holobyte

Age Rating: 12+

Playability Status: Perfect

Tested On: Windows 8 x64

Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable

During a routine traning exercise, one of our super battle cruisers has suffered a computer failure. As a result, instead of heading towards an asteroid, it’s now on course to destroy a heavily populated, peaceful planet. Despite the crews best efforts, the ship remains automatically on course. It’s up to you and your meagre three probes to enter the ship and figure out a way to shut it down. Fail and not only will billions of people on the planet die, but the resulting war will claim the lives of millions more, no pressure then.

Installation

Iron Helix will install using DOSBox and Windows 3.1. Follow our DOSBox and Windows 3.1 tutorials to set up DOSBox and install Windows 3.1 if you have not done so already.

Once you have Windows 3.1 installed in DOSBox, insert your Iron Helix game CD then start DOSBox and Windows 3.1, making sure that your CD/DVD drive is mounted in DOSBox. In your Windows 3.1 environment, open the “Main” group and click on “File Manager”. From the File Manager window, select the CD Drive (typically drive letter d) at the top of the window and then run the “Install.exe” program from the list of files on the right. The installation process should then be automatic.

Running the game

Once installation is complete, you should see a new group called “Drew Pictures”. Open this group and click on “IRON HELIX” to start the game. You may find that the game refuses to start unless you change the screen resolution to 640×480 with 256 colours in Windows 3.1. Our tutorial here shows you how to do that.

Screenshots

Click on any screenshot to enlarge it.

Exploring the desolate interior.

Oops!