Another ECA (EA) title, LHX attack chopper was an excellent flight sim for its time. The shareware edition is what I played most, which featured a couple of missions only for the LHX chopper. Sometime later I wound up with the full version of the game and was able to play the whole enchilada.
This is another of the ‘Lazy Sunday’ games. The hours of quiet I had being necessary to navigate the fairly complicated game play here. Being a simulation there were dozens of keyboard controls and I did not have the keyboard overlay that told me what they were.
As an aside, the computer on which I played this game was located in a fairly large room. I can remember running around in it as a young tyke and feeling like it took a lot of steps to do so. I’ve had occasion to visit it again in my adult life and I am astounded at how adult-sized me is not able to realize the space in the same manner as kid-sized me. It’s weird how as you get older the world around you gets smaller. Random I know… Okay, back to LHX.
My only criticism of the game is that the render distance is often not far enough to actually be able to see the things shooting at you. Though I suppose it is possible that this is how it is in real life too… though I think it’s more likely the other way around. Crashing is easy and helicopters are fragile little flying dinghies that are easily shot down by the barrage of missiles launched at our heroic pilot.
I thoroughly enjoy rescuing captive hostages and blowing up tanks and SAM sites and helicopters and houses and cars and… well okay some of that you likely are not supposed to be shooting at. The destructibility of the environment was ahead of its time, though considering the environment consists of a flat landscape and the occasional hill that isn’t saying much.
The helicopters available are the LHX, Apache, Blackhawk and Osprey. I recall talking with my uncle about this game back in the day and we shared frustration at attempting to successfully convert the osprey to airplane controls without causing it to crash and burn. The Osprey is a VTOL/STOL tilt rotor aircraft which means that it takes off straight up and then converts to airplane mode in flight. There are a couple of other aircraft that perform this form of technological voodoo and if that sort of thing interests you here is a good reference.
Anywho, I much prefer the Apache to the other choppers. I have always liked the Apache helicopter and getting to fly it in game was thrilling. Growing up near an army base, I had plenty of opportunity to see them fly around in real life. In game, it has more armament options but it is slower than the LHX. The Blackhawk and Osprey having capacity for carrying folks in case you’re out rescuing as you are wont to do. Each mission likely has a ‘best in class’ though you can attempt most missions with most helicopters.
I don’t recall much plot, there are a handful of campaign areas and each chock full o’ missions. Each mission has a synopsis and explanation so you might be able to piece together some sort of campaign goals into a story. There is no cohesion to my recollection but in all honesty I did not play back through every mission. I highly recommend this if you’re a fan of the old school flight sim games.
That’s all I have for today, stay healthy, safe and sane!
-NG
