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Players will find that the Hind flies much like it looks. It can move along at quite a good clip when it needs to but it possesses quite a bit of weight, which you'll feel in the way it handles. The Hind simply doesn't like to make sudden changes in direction, and its weapons and avionics suite doesn't lend itself well to pop-up attacks.
The result is that you'll find the Hind flies a lot like a P-47 Thunderbolt. It likes dive and slash attacks and high-speed passes - completely different than the "Low and Slow" technique typical of a cutting-edge helo sim. This works pretty well as long as there isn't much in the way of heavy AAA or SAM sites. If it does get pretty rough, you'll find yourself flying extremely low and extremely fast in an effort to maxmize shock value and minimize exposure.
Hind offers another innovation that we really haven't seen before in helicopter games: Proper articulated infantry. The game has many infantry units that are far from sliding stick figures or bitmapped pictures. They are actually individual polygon men with various weapons that they carry. Their detail is very good, barely abstracted at all.
They walk, run, raise guns, and fall over when shot with uncanny realism. Even when they move in a group they still are handled as individual men by the program. In certain missions you can even evac, resupply, and deploy some of your own infantry and watch them get into gun battles with the enemy.
This degree of detail allows a whole new dimension in a helicopter sim. For the first time you can fight in an Afghanistan scenario that does the war justice. The rebels you fight don't have the technological advantages the mighty Soviet Union has, but they'll fire plenty of Kalashnikov rounds, DShK machine gun rounds, RPG's, Stingers and anything else they can at you to try to bring you down. If you return fire with the turret gun, the man you're firing at will turn to run if you don't hit him immediately and you'll have to chase him down if you want to finish the job - difficult to do when you have so many rebels to deal with.
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Jobs with large amount of enemy infantry require something with a bit more punch. Perhaps you want to load up with some rocket pods, maybe some GP bombs against their vehicles. When you want some serious intimidation value though, there's nothing like mounting a pair of heavy 20mm cannons to the wingtips, large FAE bombs that turn the entire airspace over the target into one gargantuan combustion chamber, or the perennial favorite - the mine dispenser.
To use the mine dispenser, head straight for the nastiest, meanest group of rebels you can find and trigger the dispensers as you fly over. A sharp buzzing sound from the ejection charges sounds and an entire could of mines sprays out behind like a deadly mist - nothing left after the pass but still polygon bodies in little pools of blood. It's the next best thing to carpet bombing with a B-52, and very precisely targeted. Just try not to laugh like a maniac as you bear down on your intended victims. All their efforts seem like a boy with a BB-gun trying to stop a frieght train by comparison, which really accentuates why the Hind has come to be such a feared opponent world wide.
All this doesn't mean the Hind is invulnerable, although it can feel like that at times. A lucky shot from an RPG can completely ruin your day, as can most Stinger launches if you are not dispensing countermeasures at the time. That doesn't even begin to cover the vehicular AAA and SAMs you'll have to deal with in the Korean and Kazakistan theaters.
The gameplay in Hind is very rewarding taken as a whole. As is traditional for DI sims, the battlefield is a very busy place, and in Hind that is no exception. At night it can be especially stunning, with bright tracers and brighter exhaust flames from RPG's and missiles arcing back and forth between various forces. It really helps the feeling that you are part of a bigger picture. However, the fact that there simply is no dynamic campaign tends to shatter the feeling that any of that fighting down there matters. If you accomplish your mission, what incentive do you have to help out friendly troops in trouble? A good dynamic campaign would really have made a tremendous difference.
So is Hind worth buying? If you are not a sim-player you might want to try something a little more action-oriented like Comanche 3. If you consider yourself a light-duty sim player and can put up with primitive graphics, I would highly recommend it - just make sure you experiment with the difficulty settings to find a combination that works for you. If you consider yourself a serious simulation fan , the answer is yes, absolutely, without reservation.
Hind offers a helicopter experience unlike any other helo sim on the market, and is a great way - indeed, the only way currently - to get a feel for helicopter vs. infantry combat. Now if iMagic can only be convinced to do a Vietnam era helo sim flying Snakes, Low Birds, and Slicks over the jungles with 3d-acceleration, we would have the perfect extension...
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