Team Apache

Team Apache
Developer(s)	Simis
Publisher(s)	Mindscape Group SSI
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	June 24, 1998
Genre(s)	Flight simulator
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Team Apache is an attack helicopter flight simulator developed by Simis and published by Mindscape Group. The game emphasizes on commanding a group of six AH-64 Apache crews of the US Army in battles against the Communist FARC insurgents in Colombia and the Russian military in Latvia.

Team Apache was initially developed by Simis under Eidos Interactive. When Simis' two lead developers, Jonathan Newth and Ian Baverstock bought the company back from Eidos, they became an independent development team once more and Mindscape purchased the publishing rights of the game.

Gameplay

Team Apache focuses more on the gameplay aspects of command, tactics and battlefield realism, rather than the realism of flight and weapons systems modelling. The player manages the unit's morale, supply and maintenance, and the tactical planning that takes place before the mission. The geopolitical causes of Team Apache's wars are relayed in both the game's manual and the "daily" newspaper, with a focus on being realistic. Detailed military-style SITREPs create a picture of the tactical situation, and ground forces can be seen in the game fighting each other throughout the theatre using fairly realistic deployments and movements. Team Apache contains various modes, including a multiplayer mode and a mission building application:

Training

The Training missions give players the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the mechanics of flying the Apache helicopter. They are instructed by an artificial, gruff flight officer, one pilot McNabbit. While the learning curve in the actual game takes no more than two hours, the training missions are extremely rigid, and each instruction must be performed precisely.

Instant Action

This mode puts the player into arcade-style combat. The player has no team to command or get support from, and there is no mission structure. The objective is to simply engage and destroy as many enemy vehicles and troops as possible around a circular course that leads back to the base each time.

Combat Missions

The Combat Missions are a series of realistic, structured missions during which the player takes command of a team of Apaches. They are much like the Campaign missions themselves, but they are independent of one another and can be repeated upon completion. These are the following mission types: Air to Air, Deep Strike, Route Recon, Search and Rescue, Search and Destroy, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD).

While there are different mission types, the objective remains the same for each. However, the weather, the time of day, the location of the mission, the number of Apaches accompanying the player, and the difficulty can be adjusted. The player begins the mission on the ground, takes off, and follows a route dotted with Aerial Check Point (ACP) destinations to find and eliminate the target or rendezvous with an ally and achieve the objective. Autopilot can be activated to easily navigate and find the APCs.

Campaign

This mode allows the player to take control of a company of six Apache helicopters - plus a spare. Under the player's command are eight pilots, eight co-pilot/gunners, and sixteen crew chief personnel. The player can choose a name with limited characters, and can also select the division and company the team will belong to.

Mission builder

Team Apache comes with a fairly simple mission creator utility. The user is allowed to set their helicopter unit's take off and landing points and place enemy or friendly ground units. It is possible to give initial orders to ground units, but no sea units can be placed, and the only air units other than the player's helicopters that can be placed are enemy helicopter flights, which hover over their location and cannot be given orders in the mission creator.

The user then sets point values for the Major Defeat, Defeat, Draw, Victory, and Decisive Victory win levels, may adjust the default weapons load for the mission, and can set a briefing. The user saves the mission and opens it in the game in the "Combat Mission" screen, where the mission's weather, time, difficulty, and the number of aircraft in the player's flight may be adjusted with each play.

The mission creator is not fully featured, and does not have all of the functions present in the missions that come with the game.

Plot

The storyline in Team Apache is developed through FMV sequences, in-mission briefings and newspaper articles.

Colombian Campaign

In 1998, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo or FARC-EP (Spanish for "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army") has staged a large-scale guerrilla offensive against the government of Colombia. In its wake comes a wave of kidnappings and assassinations of high-ranking officials and their families. The corrupt and inefficient military of Colombia and police cannot hold their own against the insurgents, and need help from the United States. The United States needs to safeguard Colombia's oil industry and eliminate FARC's illegal cocaine industry.

See also

• Comanche series

External links

• Combatsim.com Team Apache interview A site dedicated to combat simulations, with an interview with Bryan Walker, the original concept developer for Team Apache.
• Gamespot review
• Team Apache at MobyGames
• Migman's Team Apache info