Hind is a very big change from the helicopter sims we've been exposed to over the past year or so. Not only is it a simulation of a Soviet helicopter, it also is a simulation of a helicopter that is large, heavy, and decidedly low-tech.

In a day where we are getting accustomed to mast-mounted radar, glass cockpit design, and digital flight control systems, the Hind is a completely different beast. Not one MFD exists in the entire helicopter. Instead the cockpit is a large array of primitive analog instruments and sliding ruler map display. It's so old-fashioned it's positively quaint.

Nearly the same can be said of the game itself. The graphics engine is virtually identical to that of the original Apache by Digital Integration. It doesn't support any kind of 3d hardware acceleration. Graphics options can only be selected by a slider switch.

Special effects are rather weak by today's standards. The texture mapping runs so slowly that players will almost always leave it turned off. Worse yet, unlike A-10 Cuba, the game doesn't support ground clutter, making it very difficult to eyeball your altitude in undulating or flat terrain. That's never a good thing in a helicopter game.

Collision boxes with buildings are obnoxiously huge. It's basically impossible to land in an urban area even if you are an accomplished pilot. Crashing is incredibly lame as well. You descend to the ground and try to set it down, when all of a sudden everything stops and a box pops up that says "End Mission Y/N?" You don't know whether you're down safe or if you've crunched it while trying to land at your home base. If you do crash land you have the same "End Mission" box which will either boot you back to the menu or show a weak bitmap of you blowing up. Crash landing damage should be much more graduated and could be visually a little nicer.

Targeting is not exactly intuitive. With the large variety and number of targets available in a helo sim, paging through all the available targets is cumbersome, and if you overshoot your selection it can be downright catastrophic. To help in this the game provides the "Silicon WSO" who prioritizes target lists. Even with the Silicon WSO the game doesn't always select the target you want and getting to it can be tricky. Comanche 3 is a little better in how it handles target prioritization when you need it.

Viewing is a little quirky. First of all, Hind uses what is called a "rigid" camera. This means that whatever view you are in, the camera views the helicopter in a very fixed manner, as if it was mounted on a rigid boom. While this is understandable inside a bitmapped cockpit, in external views it tends to insulate the viewer from the various nuances of the flight model.

By comparison, A-10 Cuba uses a flexible camera in external views, as if the camera was mounted in a plane flying formation with the A-10 so you can see every bump and flutter the plane makes as it flies and so get a better idea of the flight model. The flyby views are always drop-cams that are inevitably behind the helo and thus aren't useful for viewing more than a second when in forward flight (they're not very dramatic for that matter, which is a shame).

The game has a padlock, but it only works for the gunner's seat and it only pans left and right, moving the targeting display vertically instead of panning up and down. While primitive, it is worth pointing out that this is the first real attempt at implementing a padlock view in a helicopter game, so iMagic and DI should at least receive considerable credit for that.

One problem with the padlock and gun tracking is that the moment you kill your target the view shifts instantaneously to the next target without pause or tracking across to the next target - just an instantaneous blink. It's very distracting when that happens.

Another thing that we're really missing in Hind is the distinct lack of a dynamic campaign system. Considering that Hind is a descendent of Tornado it really seems strange that Hind uses restrictive scripted missions when Tornado had such an effective dynamic campaign.

The sound is not too shabby at all. While it's not exactly an aural festival, it does the job very well without getting annoying. The rotor sounds right for a five-bladed helo. The turret gun sounds a little shallow, but seems decent. Explosions are muffled, but they do the job. The Bitching Betty in the Hind sim sounds pretty funky, though - you have to wonder if a real Hind would have one in the first place.

Other than that, it gets better. The doors have a wonderfully authentic whirr. The WSO speaks with an accent but doesn't sound badly dubbed and his voice doesn't get overly annoying. The launch sounds for the various weapons are extremely convincing. Finally, the music in the menu screens was an absolutely perfect selection. It is doubtful that any other piece of music could do a better job of setting the mood to fly the beast. Overall the sound effects had room for improvement, but the company chose wisely in doing fewer sound effects effectively than loading up on sounds that may be poor.

The flight model is, in a word - incredible. Hind has the very best flight model out of all the helicopter sims released to date. No other game gives you the feeling of just how difficult it is to learn to fly a helicopter, especially trying to stay on top of the "greased ball" when hovering. Most every account pilots make of learning how to fly a helicopter repeat the same things again and again: controls are sluggish and unresponsive, you have to plan your control inputs several seconds ahead, coordinating tailrotor pedals and collective controls is very difficult to do properly, the helicopter wants to slip off of it's ground effect cushion in a hover.

Not only are these aspects modeled well, it all feels right intuitively. It takes quite a bit of stomach to be able to get on top of the flight model, but mastering it is a very rewarding experience.

For those who are a bit put off by difficult flight models, there are two easier models available, a "Stable" model which does not require careful tailrotor/collective coordination - very good for folks who don't have rudders handy, and an "Arcade" or easy model that is reasonably easy for players used to arcadish flight-sims - still difficult for non-sim players but very accessible for folks with any sim experience. I wouldn't go so far as to say the flight model is perfect, something still doesn't feel quite right, but it still is the best available to date. 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.

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...