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Don’t know the difference between a cyclic and a collective? Couldn’t give a crap about retreating blade stall? Like choppers? In that case, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this combat-helicopter game, because none of these conventional whirlybird terms need bother you in this “relaxed realism” sim. Indeed, NovaLogic
is unabashedly promoting No. 4 in its top-selling Comanche franchise as a “shooter in the sky” for action gamers of all stripes.
Set against a number of richly detailed scenic backdrops — incorporating densely vegetated landscapes and convincingly fluid and reflective seascapes — Comanche 4 is a graphical tour-de-force. The fully interactive 3D environment includes trees that sway as you hover nearby, dust and sea spray that kick up from your rotor wash, and scores of individually rendered and animated ground troops.
Comanche 4 places you behind the controls of the U.S. Army’s 21st-century RAH-66 Comanche gunship, bringing America’s military might to bear against global terrorist threats in various hotspots around the world. The game features seven mini-campaigns totaling 30 individual missions.
Most of these operations are also highly implausible Hollywood-style affairs, with so many enemy assets deployed against you that you’d almost swear they were respawning themselves off-camera. The missions are definitely challenging, though remarkably short in both duration and scope.
Your load-out of Stinger and Hellfire missiles, Hydra rockets, and 20mm cannon will make short work of virtually everything in your path, from dug-in infantrymen to massive shipyard cranes. The damage is spectacular, especially the collapsing buildings, sinking ships, and fireball effects. Anti-Greenpeace types can even defoliate entire groves of trees with a well-placed incendiary rocket launch.
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