Apache: Air Assault

[fallenangle]

After it was bought to my attention on another forum I did a quick search and couldn't find much about Apache: Air Assault here.

Never heard of it before today but it sounds to be exactly what I've been looking for since playing Eidos/Core's PS2 Thunderhawk: Operation Phoenix a long time ago now: a decent console attack helicopter combat 'sim'.

Seems to be getting pretty good reviews for a game of its type and what particularly encouraged me to find out more is that some gamers, probably American teenagers, on Gamefaqs hate its steep learning curve and more realistic than usual combat requirements.

Anybody here played it yet? Opinions.

[Brad]

I played the demo. I thought it was pretty good at what it was trying to do. If I didn't already have a backlog of stuff to play I'd probably buy it.

[Anpanman]

Me too, loved it.

One training mission and two actuals missions, the second one is tough - I thought so at least.

Definitely going to get this.

[charlesr]

I tried the demo and thought the opposite. It looked like an old PC "sim" and whilst there were a few moments of excitement, I felt I was just flying along a flat map with nothing to hide behind. I wanted to creep up to a hill and pop up and let rip and pop back down again without them ever knowing I was there. I couldn't help feeling if it was real I would have been shot down in an instant at almost all times.

[Anpanman]

Fair point. I don't play - and never have played PC games (unless you count the Amiga) and since there aren't many games of that ilk on consoles it seemed a nice change.
It did take me back to the Ami days though and that's perhaps another reason I liked it.

Maybe there are hills and terrain in the game, though that realism point can be aimed at many games, one of the levels in COD4 where you are protecting the tank has a small section where a couple of Huey Cobra's come in over flat terrain guns blazing etc, if there were really that many enemy soldiers with RPG's you would think at least one of them would have got a hit.

[fallenangle]

The fact is attack helicopters are used in the flat terrain of the Iraq desert and similar areas of Afghanistan where there is precious little natural contour or tree cover. The pop up and fire technique was really developed for use in the European landscape against Russian armour.

I'm guessing that as they're out of favour as enemies the developers may well have focused on those more recent/continuing wars for their inspiration. From a gaming pointing of view, if that is the case, it is a bit of a shame but not completely off-putting.

The very thing I enjoyed about it despite the more exaggerated world that it featured is that Thunderhawk OP was not a gung-ho arcade shooter. It required and rewarded authentic attack helicopter techniques, on its hardest setting at least. Much of the time it could almost be described as a stealth game although it varied the pace of the gameplay very effectively throughout.

The only other game that I've come across to match it was Xbox Yager. Again a much more sci-fi setting, and certainly not a genuine attack helicopter based game, but very similar in terms of controls and general gameplay.