Losing control is very easy and trying to line up a shot can be a very infuriating and even somewhat humbling experience to those accustomed to more forgiving control methods. While I’m sure veterans of flight simulators will call me out as something of a skirt, for the majority of gamers, just getting the Apache to go where you want will be difficult enough – the pitch, the roll, it’s all, well, it’s all very realistic funnily enough. Bang it up to the ‘Realistic’ setting however and boy, do you have a very different game on your hands.Įven without enemies to deal with, Apache on the Realistic setting is still a challenge. Getting your reticule over targets isn’t too tricky and getting your Apache to go where you want feels like second nature pretty much right from the off. It delivers a reasonable level of control over the pitch and roll of the helicopter without ever letting the advanced physics get in the way of the core gameplay. On its default difficulty setting of ‘Training’, Apache offers up a decent enough challenge, but will nonetheless be immediately playable to the majority of gamers. It certainly doesn’t have the wow factor of the more arcade-friendly air combat games currently available and has little to no interest in telling a compelling story, but it does have some extremely challenging gameplay, a collection of painstakingly authentic Boeing built Apache helicopters and a handling model that caters to both the casual and the hardcore. For those raised on the arcade sensibilities of the Ace Combat and HAWX franchises, Apache: Air Assault’s unforgiving controls and decidedly slower pace may be somewhat off-putting, but for those who have been waiting patiently for the first realistic, genuinely challenging air combat game of this generation, well, Apache: Air Assault is it and, you know what, it’s all the better for it.ĭespite their history in the flight simulation genre, Gaijin Entertainment has never developed a video game based on helicopter air combat before – not that you’d know from Apache: Air Assault mind it feels assured, technically solid and wholly authentic. Simulation or arcade? I recently reviewed HAWX 2 and criticised it for not picking a side – that certainly isn’t a problem that Gaijin’s unapologetically sim-centric Apache: Air Assault suffers from.