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!

Here's an interesting comparison of the same mission from both versions.

This one based on F-16 Fighting Falcon updated engine (1998 release):



And the original one from 1995 (still a bit older than the GOG release - see info in the video description):

Looks pretty interesting this new "updated" version. Wondering where can I get it, as I will love to try it and if you please can upload a video of Hind Afghanistan mission. Thanks for showing this!

I got my copy from ebay 2-3 years ago, and it looks like it's still available new and sealed:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APACHE-LONGBOW-P...=item2c500baaba

make sure it's from SoldOut release - it's the one with updated graphics engine, even though it shows screens from the older version on the back of the CD case.

I'm currently uploading a mission from Hind based in Afghanistan per your request, but from the first release of the game (based on the original AL engine). As I also own the SoldOut release of the Hind, I will update this version also for comparison but a bit later as I won't have time later today. Stay tuned.

Hi damson, interesting videos.

I own the GOG versions of Apache Longbow and Hind, but obviously they only run the DOS versions in dosbox.

I have dug out my old disks of the Sold Out (3dfx) versions of both, but I can't get them to install.

I am running Win7 HP 64-bit, so I guess it is the old 32 bit installer issue.

Just wondering what setup you are running your 3dfx versions on, and how you got them installed?

Thanks,

Baltika

Video uploaded:

Hey baltika - in spite of them being 3DFX versions I run them in software mode under DOSBox using DOS installers. I didn't even tried installing them on my Win7 64-bit machine using Windows installer. On my other PC with Win XP 32-bit the Windows installer does work, but the game will be unplayable due to high gameplay speed. So I just install them under DOSBox which will run on every OS.

Here you can see both games running in 3dfx mode on supposedly actual old PC with PIII CPU with 3dfx on board under Windows 98 (no emulation)

OK, thanks.

Hard to beat the playability and atmosphere of these old sims - looks like it's time to start that retro gaming Win98/3Dfx box building project

Good luck with thar baltika, and invite me when you're done, I'll bring the beer!

I have hind and apache from Gog, but have not managed to get my joystick and pedals working properly with them.

Hey FT, I must admit, I have never even attempted multiple controllers on Apache/Hind - often these games just don't have the support. I run DI's Apache Longbow on a little netbook I commute with on the train, and fly using the keyboard. Works just fine, although not the most immersive.

For my desktop, I have a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X setup which I plug in for older games which require a single controller. Not a bad secondary setup, and ideal for games which only recognise one controller, which sadly is a lot of these older sims.

My main simming gear is the Warthog stick & throttle with Saitek combat flight pedals, but unless you have multiple-controller support in-game, it's a no-go. You can create a virtual single controller through the TM software, but they really need to either release compatible pedals, or add 3rd-party pedal support. Currently, it's just good to combine the stick and throttle quadrant. Grrr!

Slainthe! to a fellow Scotsman

OK, here's the same mission from updated version:



with a bit more action at the deployment zone at waypoint X, showcasing a bit of rolling take off and getting damaged on the way back.

Got the game! Should I install it using DosBox?

That's what I did. If you run in some troubles running it under DOSBox, ask away or check this thread:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3323439/all/Apache_and_Hind_in_DOSbox.html

When I enter the game I appear in what seems the "multiplayer" screen. If I hit exit the game shuts down, how can I do to enter single player mode?

Do you have your CD in the drive, and that drive mounted in DOSBox as CD-ROM drive? For convenience you may make iso image from the CD and mount it as a image in DOSBox (shorter laoding times).

Yes.



No idea of how to do that. Can you help?

OK, first things first. If you get this after starting hind



it means that the game doesn't see a CD in your drive.

Since you were able to install the game you shouldn't have this problem.

1. Did you installed the game under DOSBox?

2. Do you try to run it under DOSBox?

3. Do you have any experience configuring DOSBox? (if not I may help but my posts could be long )

I installed the game copying all the cd contents into my HD and then using DosBox for the installer. I cannot install from the cd, Any idea?

You should install the game from the CD.

Mount your physical CD-Rom/DVD-Rom drive in dosbox, if the drive letter for your physical drive is D:\ you should type in dosbox (or edit your dosbox.conf file to make it permanently):



Then if you put your Hind CD in your drive it will be accessible inside dosbox.

So, install it again from CD and run the game (you need to have CD in drive to play).

If you prefer not to use the CD, you have 2 options:

- make a virtual image of the CD (dosbox supports iso, cue/bin) and mount it in dosbox using imgmount command:



- if you have Daemon Tools, make a virtual image of the CD (any format will do as long you can mount it with Daemon Tools, preferrably create one with Daemon Tools itself), mount the image in your Daemon Tools virtual drive and then mount the drive as ordinary CD-Rom drive in dosbox. So if your virtual Daemon Tools drive has letter E:\ type in dosbox



Other way that might work (didn't tested it with Hind) is to copy all the contents of the CD to your HDD, and mount the copied content so it mirrors CD-Rom content to trick dosbox to thinking it's actual CD.

So if you would copy all the contents to your C:\HIND_CD folder for example you should mount it using this command in dosbox:


I'm assuming in all examples that you mount your dosgame folder as c drive in dosbox


the use of -freesize switch is very useful when you can't install the game because of "not enough room on HDD" message - the default size of drive in dosbox is pretty small so it's convenient to use this switch if you plan to install 50+ MB sized games. The number after the -freezise switch specifies amount of free MB available on dosbox's drive.

Personally I prefer using the CD images as it's faster than the actual CD, and copying all the contets from the CD to HDD isn't the good idea either since you only clutters your HDD with lots of files compared to one/two file count of the CD image. But if you don't want to bother with CD images it may be better solution than to poping your CD to the drive each time you want to play.

For additional info check the dosbox wiki here:

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/IMGMOUNT

That game brings back memories. I remember playing the daylights out of that game.