You can switch camera views from 3rd person behind the helicopter view, the pilots seat, co-pilot/gunner (CPG) seat, or just a plain HUD view with no cockpit. There is just no need to use them in the real world, but sure makes for some good helicopter dog fights in the game. There is some air to air combat with other helicopters in the game, but in real life, you will never see an Apache with stinger missiles on the end of its stubby wings. The missions are varied enough, but mostly have you attacking ground targets. The Campaign takes place across three locations: Africa, Asia and Central America. Single player is what I expected a single-player campaign to be. The single player campaign and squad operations. Realistic, you get 4 attempts and reload of weapons happen after a set time in the air. Realistic and Veteran are the same control wise, but Veteran, you get one attempt per mission and once you use all your weapons, you have to land at a predetermined pad to get reloaded. The HUD in realistic/veteran is almost identical in what us real Apache pilots see in our monocle, (Look up pictures of apache pilots if you don’t know what I am talking about.) from the radar altimeter on the right, to the velocity vector in the center, and the torque meter in the upper left corner, it is very similar to how we look at things in the aircraft. The real treat in playing in these modes though, is the HUD. Realistic and veteran applies all these mechanics into the controls. To speed up in a helicopter, you need to push the cyclic forward, but if you don’t add collective you will start diving and lose altitude. It is the realistic and veteran modes that requires a lot more coordination and has a steeper learning curve. In the training mode, it is fairly easy: Take off with the collective and fly around with the cyclic stick. It takes coordination of all the controls to properly fly a helicopter. In a helicopter, the cyclic is your directional control such as climbing and diving, or banking left or right. So left or right on the stick will have you spinning to the left or right horizontally, similar to an airplanes yaw. The right analog stick acts as your pedals also. You can hover up by pushing your right analog stick up, and hover down pushing down on the right stick. The controls are as follows: The right stick is your “collective” which in a helicopter is the control that moves a helicopter up and down vertically. Training mode simplifies everything from controlling the aircraft to the HUD. There are three types of difficulty modes: Training, realistic, and veteran. The game starts you off with a tutorial mission, in which you must start out using the training difficulty mode. I’m happy to say, not only did Gaijin do a great job mimicking helicopter flight using a console controller, they made one hell of an authentic Apache game. I just didn’t see that translating well to a console game. It takes both hands and feet to fly a helicopter and when you throw in radios, weapons, systems, etc., it takes all your fingers and concentration as well. Helicopters are a lot harder to fly than airplanes. But, when I heard Gaijin was making an Apache game for consoles I was still skeptical. It blended realism with arcade type elements which made it user friendly and playable for console gamers. Birds of Prey is what I envisioned a perfect console flight game should be. The only console flight games I enjoy are the Ace Combat series…that was until Gaijin Entertainment developed Il-2 Birds of Prey for consoles. I like my flight games with a degree of reality, not the unrealistic arcade games like Top Gun and After Burner. As an aviation nut and pilot, I cringe at most console flight games.
I fly AH-64D Apache Longbows for the US ARMY. It really is a shame because the game is a true gem.
Especially since it’s release is in the shadow of Call of Duty and with upcoming releases such as Gran Turismo 5, this game is bound to be ignored and in bargain bins after the holiday season. It’s a shame that Apache: Air Assault will fly under most people’s radar (no pun intended) this holiday season with all the other blockbuster games coming out. Its long, but I went in depth.and yes I am a real Apache pilot for the US Army.
This game isn't getting the spotlight it deserves. So I wrote my own and am posting it on as many websites and forums as I can. Many sites have not reviewed this game and ones that have are some half-assed reviews, such as IGN.com 's review. I had a different screen name but forgot it (it's been a while). If I can find it for $40, I'm going to pick it up Also, found this review from an actual Apache pilot on neogaf: I thought that this would be a cheesy budget game when I first saw it, but the demo left me pretty impressed - I love how the FLIR camera view looks just like actual combat footage.
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