Apache: Air Assault Page 2

By SimHQ on December 12, 2010 in _air13, hide

Manual Gun Views

One of the cool features of this game is the TADS view. You see in a regular mission you fly and fire the rockets and Hellfire’s while an AI gunner fires the gun (and he seems to really suck at it by the way). You can bring your bird into a hover (or not, you can do it flying but risky), then go into TADS view which gives you two forms of manual gun fire. DVO which is direct view optics and FLIR view which is forward looking infared. You can then zoom in and out and engage with guns manually. You can also fire Hellfire missiles from this view and guide them in with your sight using a laser. Maybe not the most realistic way it’s done, but it is fun.

The Hanger

And just like in Birds of Prey, you have the hanger which contains things you unlock by completing missions. It contains the rules of the game, all the helicopters and what is new and cool is the ability to pick skins for your helicopters and apply up to four decals/emblems on them, like a lightning bolt, tiger teeth, or a red star.

Conclusion

The key word to this game and in this review is FUN. I haven’t had so much fun playing with 3 friends in cooperative mode in a long time.Apache: Air Assault is not a simulation and if you know that when you buy it and know that you’re getting an action game you won’t be disappointed.

Quite a few number of single player missions and a quick mission maker make this a great fun game for the loner. It’s even a better game in cooperative mode with friends. The number of missions in this mode is weak. It sure would have been nice to have that quick mission maker for co-op games but as of now all we get is 13. After they’re played a few times, it can get boring.

Graphics and sounds are great, especially on a PC with the higher settings and larger screen resolutions. But still damn pretty on a 50 inch high-definition TV screen. The game has built-in support for the well known Xbox 360 controls like the AV8R-02 and the FLY9, but oddly, don’t work with the AV8R-01 or other lesser known sticks. The PC version has settings for your own stick but I don’t know if they work or not since I don’t have a big HOTAS system anymore.

Technically, the PC version does a nice job of supporting AMD Eyefinity and NaturalPoint TrackIR™ technologies.

On the PC, there are better flight sims, and maybe a better one coming soon so if you want more of a simulation then I would look elsewhere. But if you want an easy and fun game then this is the one to get.

On the Xbox 360 (and the PS3), frankly… Apache: Air Assault is a very unique and different game and if you can find it for a good price and you like combat helo action then get it. Reward a company for making a fun and different game for the console, maybe they will make more or support it with more missions/helicopters or whatever.

I applaud and support a company like Gaijin who makes something outside of the norm for the console market. Apache: Air Assault is different, very well made, fun, and intense and highly recommended. No bugs or issues noted, just got to know what you’re getting when you buy it. A game, not a simulation.