Digital Integration’s first successful foray into the helicopter simulator market was very successful. Sporting a very realistic flight model which could be dumbed down to beginner levels, Apache Longbow had everything. The cockpit is very realistic as well as the weapons modelling. However, two problems existed in this game. First, the graphics, while very clear in their SVGA glory, couldn’t actually produce the rolling landscape an helicopter uses, having you stuck in some plains, with a hill here and there, and the occasional valley. Second, there is no texture mapping, just simple shaded polygons. While this didn’t bother me, some people were spoiled by the latter AH-64D Longbow from Jane’s, which had rolling terrain, texture mapping and better sound. The sound is nothing exceptional, but not terrible by any means. What one has in this game is a very immersive helicopter sim, whose strong points are flight modelling, the mission planer (straight from Tornado) and the ability to connect with other games (namely Hind). Later, DI added 3DFX support in a patch that can be downloaded from various sites. This improved graphic quality a bit, and bumped up the frame rate considerably. If you get Hind, be sure to check this one out, because it you put up the two games head to head, you’ll have a blast. Similar games include Longbow 2, Team Apache and Apache Havoc.