Comanche 2

Comanche 2 followed up on the first installment of NovaLogic's helicopter simulator in 1995 and offered players another batch of missions in the cockpit of the RAH-66 Comanche battle helicopter, built on the then-remarkable Voxel Space voxel terrain rendering technology, thanks to which the game could display vast, smoothly undulating landscapes without classic polygon models. Compared to the first installment, Comanche 2 brought an improved selection of missions and somewhat more varied environments in which they took place, from desert areas to mountainous regions.

The player carries out a series of military missions – destroying convoys, defending bases, reconnaissance, and escort operations – with an emphasis on tactical use of terrain, where the helicopter can hide behind a hill and expose only its sensors before launching a guided missile at the target. The controls were more accessible than in the harder flight simulators of the time, so the game won over players who normally avoided the sim genre, while joystick and HOTAS enthusiasts appreciated the depth of difficulty settings and more realistic flight physics compared to the competition. Missions could also be adjusted for simulation difficulty, so players could choose between a more arcade-like and a more demanding approach to controlling the machine.

The voxel graphics gave the game an unusually smooth feel of flying over hilly terrain on the PC hardware of the time, though at the cost of detail on individual objects, and the music along with engine and gunfire sounds heightened the tension of the combat missions. Comanche 2 cemented NovaLogic's position as a specialist in accessible helicopter action and paved the way for the commercially more successful Comanche 3, released two years later, which built further on the same technology and expanded the series with additional missions and capabilities. Even today, Comanche 2 remains an interesting example of how, in the mid-1990s, developers sought alternatives to what was then still costly polygon rendering.

Why play: Thanks to the unusually smooth flying feel brought by the voxel graphics, Comanche 2 is an interesting example of how alternatives to costly polygon rendering were sought in the mid-1990s.