Check out the classic Apache Longbow simulation from 1995.
Recently I started playing this great sim again. There are some very interesting missions there. Like this one...

More info in the vid description.

I like this game - its interesting enough though its flir, dtv, dvo views seem a bit odd - one doesnt so much as zoom in but actually be transported like some kind of out of body experience in over the target, but apart from that and the fact that it can be hard to tell how far one is from the ground just by looking at it, it seems alright. I like that in its missions there is alot of ai activity going with battles and such and one really needs to be careful to avoid friendly fire.

The TADS operation in this sim is quite odd indeed - as you said there is no zoom, the camera is positioned further away from you at increasing "zoom" levels with the same view angle (something like 80-90°). But the overall living battlefield feeling is there, and it was one of the first sims that showed it well. Friendly fire was indeed a big concern especially in Cyprus campaign where both sides are equipped basically with the same hardware, and there is no magic IFF squawk button, you have to depend on the old MK1 eyeball and the odd TADS doesn't help much with that (your units have green camo while the enemy have beige). In later version of the game with updated graphics engine(to F16FF standart) this was addressed by making the center display of the CP/G cackpit colour and not monochromatic.
Examples:

not sure (old version - available at GOG.com)


beige camo - enemy (new version - from SoldOut release - I grabbed it at eBay a year ago brand new!)


green camo - friendly (new version)


Other good thing about this game is that it can be comfortably flown with the keyboad alone letting you play it when your joystick is not with you at the moment

Me and my buddy used to play coop me as pilot him as gunner. it was very fun,lol




Bullet

I played this a lot with a buddy when it first came out. I still have it here somewhere. I'm surprised it will even run on today's hardware.

It runs great on DOSBox, the windows executable works in WinXP (haven't tried in Win7) but the gamespeed is too fast.

This is another Sim I haven't been able to get to work in Win7.

The later engine looks great! I bought this on www.gog.com for a few dollars and that version works fine on windows 7.

I have just now bought the sold out brand version for 5 dollars on ebay however as it looks alot better with its ground textures. I can see that it has the 3dfx logo
It may run thus quite well with nglide.

I did a very brief review of the demo quite a long while ago, then tacked on a section on the full game once I got it. You may or may not get a kick out of reading it.

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/rev/rapache.html

Please excuse the language, I have progressed a bit in writing now! But as you can tell, I wasn't impressed!

I know. I am a feckless troll.

Well, this game compared to later titles such as Jane's Longbow/Longbow2 is inferior, no doubt about it, but when it came out there was nothing better IMHO (maybe on par with Gunship2000, but for different reasons - GS2000 had multi chopper self planned missions, AL had better flight model, graphics and avionics). It still was another step in combat helo flight sims on PC. The guys who made it later founded Razorworks and developed Enemy Engged Apache Havoc and Comanche Hokum.

Hello FLYBOY,

Because I know how much you have done about my favorit avio game
I must tell you friend :
Your actions speak for you more than a lot of words

ufo :-)

Say no more!

Did you do that review recently or when it came out? This was the first game I had on my original Apple Power Mac (one of the only flight sims at the time on Macs along with Hornet)and I remember playing the demo non-stop until I actually had the full game as a christmas present the year it cam out from my then wife and absolutely loved it! Still now it gives me happy memories and there was nothing better at the time.

MaceUK33, I did the review only a few years ago - not when it first came out.

I had this, too.

I really enjoyed the training missions, but when I got to the actual missions it seemed like the CPG never stopped calling out threats and it was a bit too much to deal with. I went back to Gunship and F-117!

I actually felt there was a large jump between training and the actual campaigns.

I still have that - and it works on all of the PCs in my sig, with a little fettling. I also still have the original DID Apache for my Spectrum and Amiga (and GS2000 for all 3 ).

I only recently got Longbow 2 as well - that works well on my XP rig. My GP is envious - he really likes it but can't get it to work.

Yeah, I agree there were too many threats and they were all along your flight path. I used to get to the target area and had run out of ammo lol. And JonnyD, GP = General Practioner?

The way to approach missions was to ignore non mission targets except for imminent threats (target priority radar function 'M' helps a lot) - target only HIGH threat targets in your path or just avoid them on your way to mission waypoint and only there change target priority to other setting (i.e. if you are to destroy tanks that would be MED). You have to remember to occasionally switch to air radar mode to scan for enemy helos that can threaten you I rarley engage fast-movers. That way you can complete all missions without running out of ammo.

Interesting to me that DI Apache, EECH and other Apache sims model the PRIORITY modes on the FCR, while LB2 didn't.

I think I got DI Apache running again in DOSBox, but never got the 3DFx version to work.

I remember playing COOP with a guy on his LAN. We had to talk to each other because DI never added any sort of text chat for Multiplayer. A glaring oversight in the time before Voice Comms were common, or possible over a modem without DSVD technology. I think they added rudimentary macros in a patch, but shouting across the room was the only good way to COOP back then

Yes, GP = family doc

He's nuts about retro games, we are always swapping stuff (and my appointments always last way longer than the 10 minutes

I just gave him BMS et al on a DVD last time as he likes Falcon.

JonnyD - is your GP aware of this fellow called 'Flyboy'? He seems to have a fair few guides on getting LB2 to work on modern computers!