Home of the Underdogs
About News FAQs Contact HOTU GoogleGroup Music Manuals
Category Applications Action Adventure Education Interactive Fiction Puzzle Role Playing Games Simulation Special Sport Strategy War




Support the EFF
Welcome How you can help
Browse Games
Welcome Random Pick
Welcome By Company
  Welcome By Theme  
Welcome By Alphabet
Welcome By Year
Welcome Title Search
Welcome Company Search
Welcome Designer Search
Recommended
Welcome Freeware Titles
Welcome Collections
Welcome Discord
Welcome Twitter
Welcome Facebook
Welcome File Format Guide
Welcome Help: Non PC Games
Welcome Help: Win Games
Welcome Help: DOS Games
Welcome Recommended Links
Site History Site History
Legacy Legacy
Link to Us Link to Us
Credits Thanks & Credits
Abandonware Ring

Abandoned Places

dungeoncrawlers.org

Creative Commons License


Game #511
Hall of Belated Fame Inductee  Hind    View all Top Dogs in this genre
Simulation   Flight - Military

Rating: 9 (133 votes)

Hind box cover

Hind screenshot
The successor to Apache Longbow, this ranks on my list as one of the best games ever. Ditching the ever popular Apache, one finds him/herself at the control of the gunship-transport hybrid Mil Mi-24 Hind, a Russian helicopter that handles like a barge, looks like the hunchback of Notre Dame, and is absolutely laden with firepower.

The graphics improved a bit from Apache, now sporting some textures, but not enough to make the game shine above Jane’s Longbow (the original one). Where this game really shone was the flight modelling and missions available. Since the Hind is essentially a brick with rotors, any mishandling will send you into the floor. However, this is a very fast brick, that can keep up with most enemy helicopters in the terrain. As the helicopter can carry troops, extraction and insertion missions will appear, forcing you to do some fancy flying in hot zones. Just don’t open the cabin doors while in-flight, or you may lose the infantry squad due to the evils of gravity.

At your disposal are several weapons all Russian in origin, from the flimsy .50 cal nose mounted gatling machine gun, to the almighty fuel air bomb, capable of levelling anything in its blast radius (including you, so drop only above 300m). Flight info is laid out in the metric system, as Russian aircraft do, but not in Cyrillic, as in Flanker. Sounds are decent, but like in Apache, not exceptional.

The campaigns are semi-dynamic, which means that if you lose one mission, you probably see the same briefing as the mission before that, even though the enemy units are placed differently. There’s a narrator with a bad Russian accent reading the briefings, but I recommend you turn the bastard off, as he is most annoying, indisposed to mention your forces or the enemy without using some 2 or 3 adjectives before (“Our glorious forces have made the dastardly evil enemy fall back”, that kind of thing). The best campaign in my opinion is Afghanistan, where you’ll understand the dangers the Russians ran into with the guerrilla forces. You’ll find yourself very annoyed when you’re blasted into a million pieces by a little man, hidden with his RPG, who thought a landing Hind would be a nice target. There are times when the action will be so hectic that you’ll fly by instinct (and get appropriately killed).

I wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who likes serious sims, as it is really original and there nothing quite like it, with the exception of the Blackhawk missions in Longbow 2. My version had an online manual that could be called from inside the game, but I recommend you get a full version. 3DFX support adds much nicer graphics, and the ability to link with Apache will grant rotor-heads lots o’ fun.

Reviewed by: Tiago
Designer: Unknown
Developer: Digital Integration
Publisher: Interactive Magic
Year: 1996
Software Copyright: Interactive Magic
Theme: Modern
Multiplayer:  
System Requirements: Windows XP
Where to get it:
Related Links: MiGMan's review
Links:    
If you like this game, try: Apache Longbow, Gunship 2000, LHX Attack Chopper

© 1998 - 2024 Home of the Underdogs
Portions are copyrighted by their respective owners. All rights reserved. Please read our privacy policy.