Ka-50 Hokum

A shooting range in the sky. No story, no mission, no spaceship to protect you — just you, a helicopter and targets that keep multiplying tirelessly across Asian maps. Ka-50 Hokum is a simulator of a Soviet attack helicopter that arrived in the mid-nineties with the ambition of being realistic and hard. Around the same time Apaches were already flying in Amelia and Tigers in Europe, but here you get a machine with a lecherous racket and an obtrusive forward view.

The game takes place in a list of missions where you choose a level. You launch over terrain full of tanks, vehicles and static positions. The goal is simple — destroy as many enemies as you can and come back. Nothing illegal about it, mind you — your machine's armament consists of missiles, cannons and other weapons that you can cycle through in the menu. The setting is military, without dramatization, without narration. Go, shoot, come back or die.

The controls respect reality more than is healthy, and that is exactly what makes the game both frustrating and engrossing. A helicopter isn't an airplane — it moves slowly, turns like a sick bear, and if you forget about the pitch of the tail rotor, you fall. Shooting isn't just pressing a button, it's aiming and calculating distance. At first it seems you're flying through honey, then you realize it's not the game's fault but your own incompetence. Gradually it starts to feel right.

Ka-50 is an artifact of the time when simulators tried to be for grown-up boys who had a joystick and patience. The graphics are schematic, the sounds metallic and gloomy, and the tank animations resemble Lego. There is none of the aesthetics of a modern game or the calm of arcade fun. There is only hard engineering that will not bend to entertain you.

Playing it today isn't easy if you're looking for a pleasant time. But if you always wanted to try how a helicopter is really flown without assists, or you fancy feeling for a while like a pilot of an army that no longer exists, you'll find it here. In the browser it can be launched via DOSBox, a joystick isn't mandatory, but without one you won't get the magic out of it. It's like looking into a transparent picture of old Soviet technology — not everyone likes it, but whoever does, it's enough for them.