Apache Havoc is once again available in the UK under the XPLOSIV label at Electronics Boutique. At £9.99 it represents amazing value for money, allowing you to fly two attack helicopters (AH-64D Apache Longbow, Mi-28B Havoc) in an unlimited number of dynamically generated missions in three theatres (Georgia, Thailand, Cuba).

Both helicopters have radar and TV/Laser targetting systems of different kinds. Both are heavily armed and armoured. Both have advantages over the other. Most importantly, both are great fun to fly. The terrain generation system allows you to fly along roads at treetop height, to race along rivers hidden by the jungle canopy and to fly between ships and under powerlines.

While you can't push buttons in the cockpit and can't sit in the gunner's seat you will still need to have a good grasp of the avionics. Unlike some other helicopter games, Apache Havoc will rarely present you with targets 5 kilometres away. More often than not you will be engaging an enemy armoured column dispersed along a winding forest road, requiring you to make fast, accurate hit and run attacks. The enemy will respond with accurate fire, so any thoughts of hovering and just picking them off need to be kept for those occassions when you can use your range advantage to best effect.

Apache Havoc is full of nice little touches -the excellent rain effects, the windscreen wipers, the small but important differences between the helicopters, the amount of variation in the missions, the fighter jets coming in to attack the same column you are stalking, the missile tubes showing empty once they have been fired.

Best of all was the feeling of trepidation experienced while crossing the long fence at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, knowing the Americans were waiting for me. So my attack would have to be fast, low and hard, taking out the SAM sites and attack helicopters on their pads.

This is the best helicopter game I have ever played, just better than Longbow 2 and better by miles than Team Apache. It is made even better by the fact that it will be fully interoperable with the forthcoming Comanche Hokum game, allowing the full four helicopters to be used in all the theatres.