I really thought highly of this game when it was first released. It was one of the top sims at the time and really brought the benchmark up a notch. I was, and still am a big fan of helo sims and this one is no disappointment either. For its age, now it still holds its own as far as allowing new and old hands to jump in and take on a mission. For beginners it has a good learning curve as Afghanistan allows you to be able to fly missions against poor air defenses, thus allowing new pilots to get used to flying and attacking targets as well as getting used to the commands on the keyboard whilst not getting blown to bits if they fly too high.
The missions vary and you will have to be able to control and fly your helo differently depending on the mission. Thus the ability to be able to think on your feet and plan a strategy to achieve your objective is a must. Using the terrain to your advantage is a must to stay undetected and avoid the enemy. You should try and master this in the earlier missions as it will be a necessary skill once you move on to the next campaigns. It is worth noting that experience in being able to fly low and attack targets, whilst not receiving too much damage, is something you should be looking to achieve, so do as I did and replay missions and try new things and find out what
things work best and practice, practice, practice!!!
For the more experienced pilots the other two locations, Kazakhstan and Korea will offer you a greater challenge with Korea being the most difficult. I felt that the difficulty in Korea was a bit too much, then again it was probably very realistic, which was what the designers were after. I recommend that only after mastering the Kazakhstan campaign and learning a good strategy should you even consider attempting the Korea campaign.
I found this a great sim, with good graphics and sounds and with a good campaign outlay. I really liked that you could lean the basics at the start, and work your way up to being able to fly a helicopter against an enemy without too many problems and make it back to base. It has been outclassed by new releases, yet if you are looking at getting into a helicopter sim with no experience then this is the game for you. Good luck, good flying and I hope you enjoy this game as much as I did.
