Wondering how Apache: Air Assault compares to Gunship!, everyone says is Arcade, but after DCS: BS almost real simulation all other games appear as Arcade games. Wondering If is possible to take off, land, use Hellfires in a semi-realistic way, same as cannon and Hydras. Is this the Apache game I'm searching, or should I reinstall Gunship!?

This is a very short game , gunship had probably three campaigns. AAA only ~10 missions.
If you ask for realism, the FLIR is IMO the best of all simulators ever.Hellfire, unfortunately, can not even lock
You can landing and rearm .Do not have time for tactics,is a pure arcade.
Gameplay is excellent (fullscreen FLIR!!)Beautiful scenery, and explosions but it is a game for one day.

I thought it was good fun. The flight model feels pretty solid and the Hellfires behave quasi-realistically but the gameplay is pretty fun. While the campaign is short a lot of missions can be damned difficult and when you beat them there are a bunch of coop missions as well. It's the Ace Combat of helicopter sims.

Rgr, will wait for a offer in Christmas. So any idea to calm my Apache needs?

What about that one: http://de.y8.com/games/apache

That game is nice for a flash game, see they're promoting a book on the Apache, is any good?

Did you never try LB2, Stratos? GS! wouldn't even be an option if you had played that!

By the way, your signature weblink is invalid.

Thanks for signature warning. I enjoyed original Longbow far more than LB2, specially Panama missions why no one ever did Panama theatre for other games?, those ones were just amazing. Found some reviews on "Ed Macy" books, purchsed both of them pretty cheap on Amazon.es.
Wondering If Gunship! ever had hilly terrain map.

Have you ever tried the modded EECH? You can fly a nice modded Apache in there. Sure you need the old EECH...
I would say Ed`s books are a must read if you interested in the Apache(and flying combat heli`s).

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_459a.html


and EECH is *wonderful*

My problem with EECH is that you take off, move to a certain point destroy ground units there and get back to land, there is not even infantry!!

Stratos - There is actually infantry in EECH, but I've never played the game to any extent to know how often they do in fact show up in a mission. But I certainly hear what you say about the game being a bit, I don't know, lacking somewhat.

It's also over a decade old.

Evil Flower - I don't see the issue with a game's age. I mean look at Longbow 2, it's now 14-years-old but still the only Longbow sim out-of-the-box (i.e. no patching or mods) that gives the most authentic Longbow experience. And this is only ever going to change if and when Combat-Helo comes out, but even then will still hold a torch to its crown (for longevity if nothing else).

And not to detract from the efforts of the EECH modding community, OK it's an old game but leaps and bounds have been achieved in making the game more realistic, and graphically it can be made much better with the many mods out there for it.

Although EECH isn't my cup of tea, if that is what satisfies you for your 'Apache fix', then so be it. I think you'll find that what many people expect from an Apache sim are different anyway, so no one sim is there to cater for everyone's desires. Some people still get a rush from Gunship 2000...

Are you flying Longbow 2 on a modern computer Flyboy? That's a great achievement, will love to fly a bit of it on my Win 7 64 bit machine.

The age of the game is very relevant since all these early 3d games were much more constrained by available technology and the majority of them have not aged that well. I used to play EECH a lot when it was relatively new but if I fire it up today it looks very dated and has a lot of questionable features despite modding the #%&*$# out of it that kill the immersion. I feel I get a more authentic flying experience from A:AA even though it is an out and out action game, so it isn't all about avionics realism, either. Besides, these days I don't have the spare time to install tons of mods to make 10 year old games look like 10 year old games with makeup.

I, personally, no longer play LB2 because I have a seemingly unfixable issue with my particular joystick and also I don't really get the time to play as immersively as I would want. Therefore, I decided to stop altogether but just keep helping people with getting the game to run on their computers and lend my advice.

It most certainly is possible to play LB2 on Windows 7 64-bit, so if you would like to give LB2 a shot on your PC, by all means have a go and I will help wherever I can to solve any issues or answer any questions you may have about the game.



Well if that's how you feel, then, so be it. What you want for your 'Apache fix' is obviously top-notch graphics and the fantastic-looking terrain, rather than realistic avionics, etc. Like I said, we all seem to want different things from even the tiny percentage of what are AH-64D sims out there. But I certainly hear what you're saying about installing all the mods!

And even though I have to admit that LB2 does look dated now, graphically, I feel lucky in one respect because that is just one of only a couple of Longbow sims that support 3DFX - therefore, for the retro-minded amongst us (and with the help of some cool glide wrappers available), the graphics still have that 'magic' about them. This is opposed to the sims that just support Software or D3D or OpenGL renderers that never really had a 'following' as such, and which never really had any extraordinary impact even in the height of their existence. You never hear of anyone building a retro PC just so they can utilize DirectX6 D3D, do you?

It's not as simple as that. What I want is to have the overall experience be decently realistic. Top-notch visuals certainly go a long way towards that but I also want the overall combat to feel authentic, but playable and fun. Switchology kind of defeats the "fun" part since it makes the game more like work, and often super-real avionics mean other parts get played down such as mission design, narrative, AI, etc. IMO I think every "realistic" game needs to take a long look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all the things they did right as far as crafting a gameworld that feels truly alive and immersive. Black Shark is a great virtual cockpit and not much more. Apache Air Assault is an out and out action game that doesn't aspire to being much more than a lot of fun. EECH was a benchmark sim with an excellent dynamic online campaign but it's just too dated now.

Then again my favorite helicopter game of all time is Zeewolf 2, so take from that what you want. If I ever do my own helicopter game, it'd be in the guise of a cool arcade game :P

After having a modded install of EECH on my computer for the last few years, I recently installed A:AA and deleted EECH. This is for a few reasons:

Time – I have pretty much no time for flight sims. So when I do get a chance, I don’t want to spend 20 minutes remembering what’s programmed where on my joystick and then spend 15 minutes flying to the action just to get shot down because in those 15 minutes I re-forgot what buttons do what. Trust me – given the time required to be proficient, I prefer higher fidelity sims. But I don’t have the time right now. A:AA is easy to remember the controls and an entire mission can be flown in 15-20 minutes.

Mission Variety – EECH missions get really repetitive. Fly to target waypoint. Engage any enemy helos along the way or fly around them. Destroy every enemy vehicle at the target waypoint. Start with Hellfires and then rockets and then guns. Fly back. I think a lot of this is due to the bug that makes enemy convoys bunch up in unorganized groups at road intersections. If I was actually seeking out an destroying an enemy convoy that was moving through the map along a road or engaging friendly ground forces, that would be fun. But taking out static clusters of vehicles out in the open get’s repetitive and boring (to me). Since A:AA missions are scripted, the initial variety in missions is much better. And given my time issues, it will probably take a while for me to get bored with the few missions it does come with.

Graphics – You can’t deny that EECH looks really dated and A:AA looks terrific. If it wasn’t for the issues above, maybe the graphics wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But since I already have issues with time requirements and gameplay, A:AA’s graphics help to make it a no brainer.


Plus the FLIR in A:AA is just downright fun! Sometimes I go to instant action missions, autohover a ways away from the enemy, and then just go to town with the FLIR for a few minutes.

Same for me malibu43.
Unfortunately the mission editor for AAA is so cumbersome. I would like to make a town full of people and were I have to seek the bad guys with FLIR. Hmm, maybe some day I will re-look into it...

I started to play Apache Air Assasoult (WIn 7, x64, i5 2500K, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6790, Thrustmaster 16000 M) and i cant configure my joystick. Can anybody knows how to configure (mapping) axis?
Tnx
Darko

You should be able to map from within the game.

Have you updated the game? There was a Y-axis invert bug in earlier versions.

Hi!
I've the PS3 version... is there a way to lock a target for hellfires with the FLIR?
It's a shame you can use only the gun with it!!!

On the xbox360 and PC versions, the hellfires will guide to wherever the FLIR is pointed (like you are laser designating). Just fire some hellfires while in the FLIR view and watch them track to whatever is under the crosshairs.