Werewolf vs Comanche by Nova Logic

By Andy Hardison

Ratings: graphics 85, sound 88, Interface 85, fun factor 98 overall 89

"Impact Kill" you hear over your comm system. That should be helpful. You proceed to your next target when you hear "Incoming." Your threat indicator shows missiles coming in from 7 o'clock. You juke left, then juke right. Your system dispenses a few flares, then chaff. After a few tense seconds, you see a missile go humming off to your starboard wing. Whew, you think, that was close. Just when you thought you were safe to go back to hunting targets, you feel 20mm rounds impacting on your ship. A Comanche Light Attack helo is after you. No problem, you pivot quickly to your port side, then stop and pivot back to your right. There he is, just about lined up into your sites. You let loose 2 archer IR. seeking missiles. After you have done that, you pull up on your collective and fly over him just as the missiles impact. Just another day in the life of a KA-50 Kamov Attack helicopter pilot.

WereWolf Vs. Comanche is the best head to head game I have found. the action, the realism, the challenge is all there for the player. I first started playing Comanche when it came out 3 or so years ago. At that time, Comanche was a breakthrough in complexity and challenge. Now, with the addition of WereWolf to the sim, that is again true. Nova Logic has produced a very faithful simulation on both the Kamov and Comanche flight platforms. When running either simulation alone, it is a challenge, and can sometimes require the playing to link with another human to actually finish a mission. However, that is not what WereWolf vs. Comanche is all about. WereWolf vs. Comanche is about two people going head to head, or jointly, into battle and seeing who wins.

I played WereWolf vs. Comanche with one of our fellow writers, Gary Rock. Since Gary had not played with Comanche before, I let him be the Comanche pilot, while I became more familiar with the WereWolf. Gary was a very able pilot, so good that he surprised me with his ferocity when we first went head to head on the modem line. This type of head to head was slow at best. Gary had to call me due to his line having call waiting, but that didn’t seem to help out with the game randomly dropping out on either of us. During flight, at random, either the Comanche side or the WereWolf side would drop with a message "A communications error has occurred" and causing us to restart our session together.

Later, after playing several games via modem, Gary and I got together to play via the parallel port. We didn’t do the serial port option, nor the network. Since neither of us has a network setup, or the means to start a network setup, we decided that the parallel option was good enough. Most players will not have a network ready setup. There are a few out there that do, but they are the exception, not the rule. For most game players, the parallel, serial, or modem option will provide the all the head to head action you could want. One of the suggestions given in the manual for head to head play is to have the slower machine drop its level of detail. I am running a Pentium 60, Gary a 486, I cant remember the speed. Gary had his detail set to low and we both had an acceptable level of flight control. However, when he put the detail up to High, then my system became erratic, and Gary's system slowed down even more.

The only blooper that I encountered while playing WereWolf was during the modem to modem play. That was the random communications error that occurred. We still have no idea what was causing the problem, but it seemed to occur when either one of us was going through a large amount of detail/action at that time. Other than that, the game was exciting, thrilling, and just plain fun for both of us. The only recommendation I have for players of this game is, if you are married, have the little lady go shopping or see a movie while you and your buddies are playing WereWolf vs. Comanche, it does get loud.