Normally, I don't like flight sims. They're usually overloaded with options to make it feel 'realistic'. So when I try one and I'm not able to take off without extensive study of the manual, I stop playing immediately. But Comanche is different! It's on the border to the action genre. The flight model is not too realistic, the controls have been reduced to the necessary things. I still consider it a simulation though, because it doesn't rely exclusively on fast reflexes, but finishing missions involves a lot of tactics.
The Comanche isn't a flying tank like the Apache. That effects the style of the missions of course. Frontal attacks have only a chance to succeed in the very first missions. Later, the enemy will shoot you off the sky in no time if you show up for too long. So you have to try it another way. As it happens, the commanding Generals are smart enough not to send you to missions in plains, but on landscapes with many canyons and valleys. And here, the Comanche can really show what his strength is: Sneaking up the enemy without being noticed, launch surprise attacks and disappear as quickly as it showed up.
The mission goals are usually to destroy something. In the first missions, it's normally just "kill everyone", later you're sent to do more specific things like destroy some heavily guarded missile launchers. It's your choice whether to blow up all the surrounding tanks or not then.
But in most cases you won't because the number of missiles your copter can carry is of course limited. There are three kinds of weapons: a machine gun, Stingers and Hellfires. Of course you can use everything against everyone but the specific abilities of these weapons make them more or less suitable for different jobs. Sometimes, you also get some other 'weapons': a wingman and artillery. The wingman just follows you and remains in cover until you order him to shoot his Hellfires somewhere. He can of course also be shot and then his weapons are lost. The artillery works similar: you give the target and some seconds later, a certain area is being destroyed - including you if you're aren't in safe distance!
It's not possible to choose which weapons to take with you before the mission. It's always preset and you have to live with it. There are also no ways to manipulate the helicopter to make it turn faster or whatever. Just one standard model. No need to tweak settings for hours, but also no possibility. This fact will maybe repulse real sim-freaks!
The game is divided into campaigns of ten missions each. They have to be fulfilled in a certain order. Not always really one after another. Sometimes you can choose from three, but you still have to play them sooner or later. But if you're stuck at one point, it doesn't mean you can't even try all the following missions! Winning a campaign, you're awarded a medal. That doesn't have a real function, but it just looks damn cool beside the pilot's name ;)
The thing that made the game popular is something completely different though. It's the graphics! Comanche was the first game to use a 'Voxel'-engine. Voxels are pixels to which a third dimension is added. Compared to the technique which was normally used then (polygons), the results were simply amazing! And it's still very impressive to fly over the mountains in full speed - that's a feeling screenshots can't give you! The only small flaw in the graphics is the lack of real 3D objects. Sometimes there is a bridge or a pyramid, but that's it. And those look really bad!
The expansion packs add many missions to the original ten and some minor improvements are implemented in the second one. In these missions, you can see reflections on the water, there are more different kinds of weather and so on.


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