Mission: Blackhawk Review

Ratings: Graphics & Audio: 20/25, Gameplay: 17/25, Creativity 18/25, Fun 18/25
Total: 73/100

Mission: Blackhawk is a highly detailed six mission add on for Flight Sim X from Abacus. Blackhawk adds six variations of the Blackhawk helicopter to Flight Sim X including the Navy, Army and Coast Guard versions. The game includes six varied missions flying the Blackhawk in mostly clear weather but you do need to learn to fly the ungainly chopper.

The six missions start out at intermediate difficulty but the Blackhawk helicopter is no easy bird to fly. You will definitely need to learn how to fly a helicopter first and then jump into the pilots seat for a fun mission rescuing people or investigating downed UFO's.

The missions provide a good mix of uses for the helicopter along with some decent graphics of the helicopter and some add-ons not used much in Flight Sim X. They have added some on the ground troops to your scenery that do not work very well but do add a little realism to the mix of the missions. The troops running around and performing parts of the missions are a nice touch but the game is not really programmed to add things like this so it is not exactly great.

You have two general rescue missions and four varied missions that will take you around the world inserting troops into situations that our military could easily find themselves in today. You also investigate the crash site of some mysterious object to find the inhabitants and must move them to a secure facility.

Although there is a cheesy aspect to the men running on the ground and definitely with the aliens, the missions are well thought out and rather difficult to accomplish. They are tough enough with the Blackhawk using the various aspects of flying and having to hover for some of the missions that you have to practice in order to perfect.

The missions are well made and interesting but not easy to fly due to the length of the missions and the general flying characteristics of the Blackhawk. The Blackhawk is a great helicopter and Abacus has done an excellent job creating the bird in great detail as well as fantastic controls. The Blackhawk is just not meant to be a helicopter that you can jump into the seat after a quick tutorial and fly well, especially hovering.

Let's face it, for real pilots it takes hundreds of hours to learn just how to fly a real helicopter. Perfecting hovering to rescue stranded people off the tops of buildings or a pitching and sinking ship will definitely take some practice. These add on missions offer a great challenge and the various Blackhawk's are greatly detailed and look wonderful.

The missions are rated at intermediate but to actually hover and pluck people off the tops of objects will take a decent amount of practice but the missions can be accomplished. The graphics are very realistic and the models used for the Blackhawk's are highly detailed. The cockpits of the various helicopters add the realistic panels and gauges along with the great external views of the birds.

As pilot in some of the missions you will control the harness to pluck the stranded people from the ship or building tops which also add to your troubles in accomplishing your mission. In each mission you actually have to go out and find your objective but they have a nice easy waypoint target for you to follow.

This does not mean you can just hop in the chopper and be at the scene in a minute or two, this is much more realistic. You actually have to fly to the scene which in some cases will be a hundred or more nautical miles away. This means either a good steady hand while you read a book or a nice autopilot that works well with a helicopter.

Mission: Blackhawk recreates some very realistic missions that are fun as well as challenging. Overall Mission: Blackhawk is a pretty good add on mission set for Flight Sim X with some very good looking aircraft. Some aspects of the missions will be a bit silly but overall they are very well made and definitely worth checking out.