Who says the only good helicopter sims come from Andy Hollis?

Every genre seems to have at least one game that sets the benchmarks for all other games to follow. In the first person shooter category Half-Life is the Holy Grail, in the sports genre FIFA rules the fields, and if you fly nap of the earth in the unfriendly skies Longbow 2 is the game you bow down to. Benchmarks change constantly though and what was yesterday's top dog might be today's second fiddle. Sometimes a particular game can last for years as king, like Civilization II. Longbow 2 sure looked like it would last years and years as the king of helicopter sims, but there's finally some serious competition for it by way of Empire Interactive's Apache Havoc.

There are two types of sims: survey sims or single vehicle sims. Survey sims allow the player to control a great many vehicles, such as the numerous aircraft you can fly in Jane's IAF. A single vehicle sim obviously focuses on only one object to model. Survey sims by their very nature tend to take a more relaxed approach to their subject matter since they have to model many different vehicles while a single vehicle sim can get down and dirty with their modeling. Apache Havoc breaks the mold by offering the complexity of a single vehicle sim with the variety of a survey sim (albeit a small survey sim). While the two helicopters are very similar and fulfill the same battlefield role, there's enough of a difference between Western and Eastern choppers to make it feel like you're getting two sims for the price of one. This is something that the old Novalogic Werewolf/Comanche could not say, as including two different helicopters in that game was more of a gimmick than anything else.

The flight model feels right in Apache Havoc (well, considering I've never even sat down in a gunship I'm using my computer flight sim experience to make the opinion) with enough options to please a hardcore Longbow 2 vet. Many aspects of the game and flight model can also be turned off allowing gamers who have sharpened their teeth on Comanche 2 and who are now looking for something more serious to tackle Apache Havoc without feeling too burdened. The manual is a rarity in today's game world, but this one is nice and thick, and there's a cardstock keyboard layout chart. While the manual is a pleasant read and covers about everything you could need to get up and flying there are no tutorial missions. If you're new to flight sims the lack of some single learning missions might make the learning curve steeper than you would expect but there is the ability to fly around in a free flight mode. It doesn't take the place of some instructional missions, but at least you don't have to continually be shot down before learning how to fly!

Apache Havoc offers three dynamic campaigns for the meat of the game; one takes place in Cuba, one in Thailand, and one in Georgia (in Asia, not the southern US state). The campaigns are truly dynamic, giving great flexibility in how you play them since events are different every time you crank one of the campaigns up. All campaigns revolve around certain map areas and who controls them. When you begin a campaign you are given a couple of missions to choose from. Your rank (dictated by how well you fare in the campaign) will lock out certain missions, so you don't have to worry about taking on more than you can handle. A typical game might begin with a simple scout mission. Once you have scouted the area perhaps you've located some enemy forces moving in. Flying back to refuel and rearm you now may have the ability to choose a mission to seek out and destroy those enemy forces. Or, because the campaign unfolds even when your helicopter is having down time, enemy helicopters might have been sighted heading for your base and you need to scramble to take care of them. Knowing what missions to take in order to help out your forces in controlling the map is a key strategy in winning the campaigns, and adds a nice wargame feel to the flight sim.

The immersion factor in Apache Havoc almost achieves the level of immersion found in Falcon 4.0. Almost, because there are a lot of minor gripes to be had with the game's state of disbelief. Graphically the game is drop dead gorgeous with an amazing amount of detail presented. Zoom in on a Humvee and you can see the driver behind the windshield, BDUs and everything. Send a rocket slamming into the side of an office building and you can count the interior floors where the hole is. There are actually forests in Apache Havoc, with roads and rivers cutting through the foliage (and usable for hiding amongst). The forests tend to end in a solid smooth wall, one of the minor gripes, but look great when flying over them. The three campaign areas also vary enough in terrain and look that you'll never get bored with sight seeing.

The dynamic campaign, with battles raging all around as you progress through your missions, really makes you feel like you're just a cog in a great war machine. You can almost smell the stench of cordite and sweat. Too bad one guy does the voice acting for practically every voice you hear, that really yanks you back to reality. Another minor gripe is your wingman, whose AI can be flaky at times, and also the fact that while the game supports very high resolutions the cockpit graphics remains at 640x480. A patch is supposedly in the works, but Apache Havoc has been out for quite a while with no sign of the patch.

Apache Havoc almost takes the crown from Longbow 2. The graphics are fantastic, the flight model good, the campaign is dynamic, and you can even fly a Russian chopper -- so where's the problem? The lack of tutorials, the poor voice acting, the on and off friendly wingman AI, and the fixed cockpit graphics, all of which are minor gripes but gripes nonetheless. If Razorworks and Empire Interactive can clean up those small problems before their next release of Comanche/Hokum we can all hail a new king. In the meantime pick up Apache Havoc, the crown prince of helicopter sims.

Reviewed by Scott R Krol.