A MUST for any flight sim enthusiast !!!!
You can choose either skirmishes or campaigns.
Skirmishes are quick battles that can be played in less than 30 minutes. Great for quickies
Campaigns take time for they represent real full-length battles.
In the campaign part of the game, a full scale battle going on. Good against bad (you can play either the good side or the bad side). It all happens in real world time. If the helicopter you are piloting crashes - it doesn't mean the game is over. You can just take over another helicopter on your side already in progress (which was controlled by the AI). The game is over when ALL of your helicopters crash and you are unable to finish your mission.
Whichever side you choose (good or bad), you will fly a DIFFERENT helicopter. They just don’t change the graphics of the helicopter, they change the flying styles. You will be literally flying differently on each side.
The missions are impressive, realistic and challenging. The AI of this game is VERY impressive. It responds appropriately to your actions.
This game doesn’t have a tutorial in the traditional sense, but it does have a “Free Flight” option. You have unlimited ammo and can’t crash. Onscreen directions are not an option. You will need to read the manual and follow along to learn. You don’t need a PhD in avionics to take-off or land in this game nor do you have to go through a series of hitting 30 keys timed right just to accomplish the take-off or landing.
The console in the game is not interactive. You can’t move your mouse curser over the “dashboard” graphics and play with the switches and buttons. For the life of me, I can not figure out why people would even want to. I have learned to shy away from helicopter sim games that do that.
As of writing this (November 2006) - the graphics are not the best, but they are still pretty darn good. When it was first released in 2000 - the graphics were off the chart. If the graphics still hold up 6 years after release, it says something about the programming.
The only thing I can say that I don't like about the game is that unless you have a programmable joystick or game pad (the kind that you program specific keyboard commands to), you really can't customize anything through the game. The commands in the game are already programmed to specific joystick buttons or levers. I personally like using game pads (I know, it takes away from the realism, but I like game pads) - so programming the game pad is VERY important to me. The game doesn't support game pads otherwise (unless the game pad can be programmed to keyboard commands).
All-in-all, this is about as good as it gets to helicopter sims. If you are wanting to join the Military and fly real helicopters or are extremely anal about realistic avionics - this game will not teach you all the proper avionics, but if you just want to get the thrill of flying with a lot of realism, than this is the game for you.