When I was in high school, I came within a whisker of signing up with the
Army National Guard under the premise that I would be put into the helicopter
pilot training program. In fact, they wanted me to sign up on a Wednesday, and
join the local unit on a weekend campout the following Friday. On my way to sign
the papers, I decided that college sounded like the better approach, but I have
always wondered what flying the Apache would have been like. Apache Longbow
Attack gave me that chance and it was a blast.
Longbow doesn’t give you a lot of instruction in the finer points of piloting
a helicopter. The documentation barely gets you going on the game, and the
missions are introduced by a scant text introduction rather than the multimedia
briefing discerning video game fans have come to expect. Once you launch into
your first missions, you have to scratch your head and wonder just how
helicopter pilots you see on the movies make it look so easy to swoop down and
blow away the baddies, because handling your collective, throttle, and rudder is
not exactly as intuitive as flying a plane. In fact, just trying to shoot a
moving vehicle is more about positioning your aircraft to take the shot than
actually shooting. But isn’t that much more realistic and true to life? Once you
get used to the mechanics, you really start to get immersed into the feeling
that you are flying a real machine.
Your armaments include the famous chain gun, which you have the option of
manually targeting with the mouse, as well as various devastating missiles that
you can lock on to the targets you select. True hard-core Apache fans will
notice that the lock on after fire feature is not present, and the various radar
functions, flight controls, etc, have been simplified for the game experience,
but this tends to help the game be more approachable to a wider variety of
gamers.
In-flight aerodynamics seem to be fairly realistic. You have to be careful
not to exceed the limitations of the airframe during your maneuvers. This is not a fighter jet able to
pull 7 G turns in order to evade and escape. You have to understand how to
manipulate the controls in order to make your ship dance. As you will have
ground to air missiles, air to air missiles, and AA to avoid, you need to
quickly learn these abilities.
The plot of the campaign is pretty thin, so the primary thrust of the game is
simply the experience of piloting the flying tank, which is a blast. If you
demand an engrossing plot, and extensive modes of gameplay, etc, you may want to
look elsewhere. If all you want to do is fly the Apache without committing years
of your life to the military, get Apache Longbow and take off.
Gameplay: 7.3
Very good implementation of a helicopter flight sim, though skimpy on the
extra details like mission briefings, alternate gameplay modes, etc.
Graphics: 8.4
The best part of the game, it really does look very sharp. The scenery is
detailed and shows such intricate attention to the nuances like ground effect
from your rotors on the grass.
Sound: 7.9
Solid sound effects, soundtrack is fairly weak.
Difficulty: Medium
In order to play through this game, you will need to learn to fly, pretty
much on your own. A joystick with a separate throttle and twisting rudder
control is highly recommended as the keyboard does not give you the analog
control over your flight that you need.
Concept: 7.2
There is little plot to work with here, the focus is on flying the Apache.
As such, the game does a great job.
Overall: 7.2
Apache Longbow Assault gives armchair copter pilots the opportunity to take
the AH-64D for a spin on a series of missions battling terrorists over land and
sea. If you have ever dreamed of blasting baddies with the 30 mm chain gun, the
$20 invested in Apache will be money well spent.
