Developed by: Gaijin Entertainment
Distributed by: Activision

Apache Air Assault is the first helicopter combat simulator to hit consoles in a long time and given it has been supported by the world’s biggest games publisher Activision and receiving official licensing and technical advice from the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer Boeing you would be forgiven for thinking it should be near perfect. Now I’m not saying the game is bad as it’s not however there are a few elements that feel a little under-developed the main one being the environment details look dated and the ground textures are noticeably bad. You can forgive that though when you then notice they have focused most of the attention on the most important thing the helicopter.



The focus on making the helicopter as realistic as possible shows through when you take a look at the detail that has been put into both the inside and outside of the aircraft it is probably one of the best vehicle models of the year but in a game with only a couple of flyable helicopters they really should be. The sound effects are also very good the engine and rotor noises are spot on and the weapon noises are just as good but this is again contrasted by the fact that the voice acting is patchy and the score is terrible.



While the game doesn’t follow any real story as such the missions are put together well enough to keep you engaged and are structured in a way that you always know what your next objective is. The only mission that feels like it should have given you more is the tutorial as it doesn’t quite go into enough depth when you take into account the massive learning curve.
To give you an idea of how hard this game can be there are only 2 difficulty settings Training and Realistic. I would say when playing on realistic it could be about the closest thing you will ever experience on console when compared to flying the real thing it is that good but that in turn does mean it will take some practise to master and even on training mode it isn’t a walk in the park. Another thing you will learn quickly with this game is that you can’t just swop in guns blazing as you will be shot out of the sky quicker than you can shout “black hawk down”.



The game will probably take most people a fair amount of time to master and is unlikely to last long with most people that don’t like flight simulator games as it requires the same level of commitment in order to get the best experience out of the game. There are 16 main campaign missions which will keep you going for a while and should you want a break from that the game also adds both local and online multiplayer with various scenarios that will put your teamwork to the test. The achievements in this game are varied and given some practise will be manageable but they will be time consuming so if you are just after a quick 1000 this is definitely not a game for you.

While it might be a little too hardcore for the masses and despite the odd few flaws this game is a great combat flight simulator that unfortunately lacks some of the depth of story and gameplay you would expect from a full priced game but overall balances out these shortcomings.

Score 7.5/10