Jane's Combat Simulations: Longbow 2

The Good
The first week i had my new computer, my brother purchased this game and many others to play on. We played each one happily, until we got to this. The intro kicked in, and played on, showing happless soviet helicopters being mowed down by countless apaches. We looked at each other, stunned, and gulped as we clicked through to the single player training. We laughed, we cried and we urinated ourselves as SAM warnings bleeped like a dying mongoose. The game itself is superb. It has stunning graphics, even now, and seems to impress me every time i think aboutt it. The game is very much reminiscent of Gunship 2000, the ultimate Amiga helicopter sim. I actually spent god knows how much money upgrading my Amiga to run it. Longbow however, doesnt really need amazing specs. Even though my old computer was terrible, even for its time, it ran very smoothly, even with high detail. In the game you have four helicopters to choose from; The AH-64A, The AH-64D Longbow, The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and the UH-60 Blackhawk. Before each mission, you could also arm your helicopters, and if yo had the Longbow, you could use the awe-inspiring Hellfire-2, which basically, you could fire off and blow apart a whole platoon of tanks, with your loadout. The game has superb graphics, excellent sounds, realistic gameplay and hard AI.

The Bad
There were not many things about this game i disliked. I would have prefered a few more Playable helicopters, like the Cobra or the "Little Birds" made famous by Black Hawk Down. These were, actually, included in Gunship 2000, the speccy counterpart from the Amiga days. Also, I found the game quite empty to do with the Blackhawk. The Helicopter just doesnt seem to fit, and seems only to be useful when controlled by the AI.

The Bottom Line
If i was to describe this game to others, i would only say...."Excellent"...because that is what it is. No other Helicopter Sim has ever sucked me in like Longbow 2.

The Good
I on more then one occasion sat down to play this game and before I knew it 5 or 6 hours had gone by.
I am and have been a combat flight simulator junkie.
I have found that except for the rare find, jane's combat sim's are a lot more fun to play, they seem to put a great deal of thought in to producing believable scenerio's historical events
Working to give the player the most accurate flight models possible.
And they always give you the "just go and blow the crap out of things" option.

The Bad
I wanted to say graphics but no they were pretty cool too.

The Bottom Line
A must have for fans of combat flight simulations.