The original had its ups and downs. The sequel is fantastic. Long, open levels (the longer, the better, if you ask me), lots of secrets, fantastic enemy design, excellent gunplay. Only the music is lacking, but I can forgive that, for how much fun the rest of it is.
It is not every day that you come across a boomshoot set in the Spanish Civil War. The pickups, guns, and enemies are all themed. Despite the spartan graphics, the level design is outstanding, and my only complaint would be the gun sounds, which are a bit thin and wimpish. However, the action is on point, accept no substitutes.
25 years ago, this game would be on a one-way trip straight to the bottom of the bargain bin. I am sad to say that, but it is true. Starting off, the sound and graphics. The graphical style is a sort of cel-shaded look, Sin City style almost. This, in and of itself, is not bad. The game is not ugly. However, it is very visually busy, and I found myself needing to squint at certain sections, especially in the last episode. Some of the monsters are nice, but as I played, I found that most blended together into a vague slush. Nothing stands out. To make matters worse, all the enemies have one of two AI settings. Either they will sit at a distance and pelt you with hitscan/projectiles, or they will charge straight at you, making a beeline for you, and with little difference in speed. This makes it feel like you're playing DOOM at 125% enemy speed setting with no real payoff. Spawns are not great either. Mostly monster closets, backspawns, and rooms packed with the same six or seven dudes that you will dispatch in the same way as everything else. The levels themselves are extremely short and very forgettable. The early game is packed with tight corridors, some with buggy spots where you can fall through the map. When this happens, all you can really do is restart the level. Visually, they are nice. All firearms leave decals on walls, however, and this makes secret-hunting a headache. Worse yet, some of the secrets (especially in later levels, where the level design gets notably worse) are level-skips, which is to say that they either link two random sides of a level (sometimes bypassing keys entirely or just straight up taking you to the exit!) or teleport you to somewhere random. The music is...bad. Drone-y, two note, doesn't fit thematically. A mission in E4 has this really weird upbeat poppy chiptune? It's bad. Weapon upgrades aren't. At least it's short. Not worth more than 2 USD. Buggy, forgettable, lame.
I am compelled to write this review because I have absolutely no experience with this sim in the past. It was not a staple of my childhood, nor have I picked it up until a few days ago, when I did so on a whim, out of absolute, unabashed boredom. It is a really spectacular little simulator. The titular Hind helicopter is really well put together. The flight deck is detailed for its time - even if the gauges are organised by the ergonomic requirement of not really being able to turn your head rather than any realistic arrangement - and the flight dynamics are...quite incredibly well put together. I flew the Hind in DCS for around 200 hours or so since it released, being primarily a helicopter pilot therein, and I can safely say that they nailed its quirks as well as they could given the technology they were working with. And that's what I want to touch on, since most other reviews give a pretty accurate overview of the gameplay. On paper, it is fairly easy to simulate a helicopter. It is just a plane that rises vertically and can move backwards as well as forwards, and directly side-to-side. Sure, there's quite a few sims from this time that get that relatively right. However, Hind (now as old as I am, quite literally), features things like an accurate depiction of translational lift, vortex ring states, and even ground effect. If you descend to quickly, you will enter a vortex ring state and get pushed down into the ground. Admittedly, it is easier to fly in general than the DCS variant, and it is easier to get out of VRS than in DCS (even if some claim that DCS exaggerates VRS a lot), but for 1996, having that many forces acting on a helicopter realistically is amazing. There's also torque, which behaves accurately - raising the collective will increase torque, necessitating pedal correction - and an accurate depiction of the heft needed to get the aircraft out of close ground effect. Peripherals are a pain but guides exist.
