LONGBOW 2

A review by Michael Santovec for KEGS (Komputer Enthusiasts of Greater Seattle) - July 1998

Jane's Combat Simulations

Jane's Information Group has been providing research on military ships, aircraft and weapons for 100 years. This expertise comes to bear in the line of Jane's Combat Simulations. These are not simple arcade shoot 'em-ups but detailed simulations. Other games in the series cover jet fighters and submarines.

Longbow 2 is their second generation combat helicopter simulation. The three helicopters you learn to fly are the AH-64D Longbow Apache, UH-60A/L Black Hawk and the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior.

Because flying a helicopter is difficult, you get to adjust the level of flight realism to something that you can manage. There are nearly 2 dozen options relating to controls, wind, turbulence, drag, weapons systems, etc.

You'll want to start off in the flight school. It's not mandatory, but unless you are an experienced combat helicopter pilot, you won't stand a chance in the field without it. In the flight school are 5 interactive lessons where the voice of an instructor explains the various controls and gives you tasks to perform in the helicopters. The instructor coaches you through each step. If you take too long to perform a task, the instructor will become annoyed. The first lesson covers basic helicopter controls and flight in a training helicopter. Then there are lessons for the 3 helicopters covering the systems unique to each. And there is a advanced Longbow Apache lesson covering its weapons systems. Also in the training school is a free-flight gunnery range. Here you can practice flying and using the weapons.


When you are ready for combat, you have several choices.

In the Single Mission building, you can design a mission of your choice. Among the parameters that you can select are type of mission (strike, escort, recon, combat air patrol or combat air support), theater of operation (western, central, or eastern Azerbaijan, or the Fort Irwin National Training Center), time of day, weather, skill level of both your forces and the enemy, tactical advantage and ground forces. You can also let the computer randomly select any or all of the parameters. Once you have selected a mission, you can go into the mission planning computer to review the objectives and tactical maps, switch the default helicopter if you like, and change the available weapons.

In the Campaign Mission building you select one of the preconfigured campaigns. Each campaign has multiple missions. Unlike the Single Missions, you don't select the mission details, but you do get to select about a dozen options that control the mission difficulty. As with the Single Missions, you use the mission planning computer to prepare for the mission.

The Multi-player Mission Building supports 2 players via modem, direct serial cable, or Internet, and up to 4 players via an IPX LAN. Each player may pilot their own helicopter on the same or opposite sides. Or two players can share a helicopter as pilot and co-pilot/gunner.

Look and Feel

You get your choice of a variety of cockpit and external views and can instantly switch between them. The cockpit graphics are excellent. My system just meets the minimum requirements for the CPU and video card. At the maximum graphic detail for the terrain and targets, the image quality was good, but the screen redraws were a bit jerky. However, I found this preferable to lower graphic detail. As is typical of these sorts of games, you have quite a few options to fine tune the graphic detail verses performance. If your video card uses the 3Dfx chip set, the game will take advantage of that for greater detail and performance.

The sound is excellent. In addition to the expected sound effects, the voices of the flight instructors and radio traffic is well done.

Due to the complexity of the simulation, there is heavy use of the keyboard. If you have just a simple joystick, you would be better off sticking to just the keyboard. If you have an advanced joystick designed specifically for flight simulators, that would be useful.


Documentation and Additional Information

With most programs today, you are lucky to get an installation pamphlet. With Longbow 2 you get four manuals totaling nearly 300 pages. And you need it. Unlike most programs, there is no online help.

The main manual is 240 pages. As a nice touch, it is spiral bound so that it can be opened flat. Not only does it include detailed information on the helicopter controls and various play options, it also has background information from Jane's Information Group on the real helicopters, weapons and the political situations that form the basis of the missions.

An 8 panel reference card covers the keyboard controls by function, as well as a layout of the keyboard. This is particularly handy as almost every key is used, many with 2 or 3 functions. Also on the reference card is a summary of the helicopter heads-up display symbols.

A demo of the game can be downloaded from the Jane's Combat Simulations web site. The file is 29 MB, so allow plenty of time for the download. Also at the web site are additional screen shots and troubleshooting information.

System Requirements

The minimum requirements include: Win95, Pentium/133 (Pentium/200 recommended), 16 MB of RAM (32 MB recommended), 200-500 MB of disk space, 4x CD-ROM, mouse, PCI video card with 2 MB of RAM (3Dfx video card recommended), and Sound card. Optional is a joystick or game controller.

The video card, sound card and game controllers must be DirectX 5 compatible. DirectX 5 is included with the game. If installing on Win98, the game is unable to determine the DirectX version. Win98 includes a newer version of DirectX than ships with the game so you should skip installing the game's version.

The product was tested under Win98 on a Pentium/133 with 32 MB of RAM, and a 16x CD-ROM.

If you want, or need, to keep the disk space to the minimum, you need to not only select the small option during install, but go into the game options (Alt/O) before flying any missions or training exercises and set the terrain detail to low (or medium). Otherwise the game will expand the high resolution terrain which consumes about 200 MB of hard disk space.

The CD-ROM is used to play some video clips and to install the mission information and terrain to the hard disk. Once you start a mission, the CD-ROM speed has no effect on the game play.

Ratings and Recommendations

The game is rated: Teen (Ages 13+) Animated Violence, Mild Language. Street price is about $40.

If you are looking for an arcade game, this isn't the one for you. However, if you want to learn how to fly a helicopter in realistic combat situations, and are prepared to take the time and effort to master this program, you'll find this game engrossing.