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N64 | Action | Army Men: Air Combat | Review

There is no Boxart for - Army Men: Air Combat
Army Men: Air Combat 18 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 3.5
  • SOUND: 4.0
  • CONTROL: 4.5
  • FUN FACTOR 4.0
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.0
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 3.9

Review: Army Men Air Combat

Review by THED-PADDESTROYER | 11/24/2000 | 14:47:41 PM PST

3DO's Army Men invade the N64 again in their huge quest to take over the console world. With so much mediocrity in the series' past, it comes as a bit of a surprise that Army Men Air Combat puts the fun back into playing with toys.

3DO's Army Men invade the N64 again in their huge quest to take over the console world. With so much mediocrity in the series' past, it comes as a bit of a surprise that Army Men Air Combat puts the fun back into playing with toys.

Toy Story
The Army Men series has always dealt with a sensitive subject: the ongoing military tension between the Green and Tan plastic armies. The first shots were fired in an Army Men squad-based RTS for the PC, followed by a ground offensive in Sarge's Heroes on the PlayStation, and now, the Army Men have taken it to the skies with Army Men Air Combat. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pilot a lone plastic green helicopter on missions that range from search and destroy, to perimeter defense, to escorting powerful secret weapons on missions of vengeance. You'll travel via portal between the real world and the land of toys, where teddy bears become Godzilla-like machines of terror.

It's this double-sided conflict that makes the game so much fun. In one mission you might have to rescue a teddy bear as it floats down a real-world stream toward a toy-world portal, only to have that bear join your cause and fight for the Green army once it gets to the land of toys. In the real world, you can use doughnuts and chicken legs to lure the evil ants to the Tan camp and watch as the insidious insects chew Tan's plans to shreds. Toy-world missions, on the other hand, play out like many military games you may have seen, allowing you to go "hardcore" as you destroy installations and commandeer secret weapons. The variety of solutions among the different missions keeps the game alive and unpredictable, something previous Army Men games have sorely lacked.

Sandbox Strike
Air Combat's controls really make the game shine. Your helicopter is easily among the most maneuverable fightin' machines in some time, and combining the Left- and Right-C buttons with the Analog Stick allows you to strafe, circle, hover and backpedal with ease. Your machine gun is mapped to the Z-Trigger, and the other buttons control maps, selecting and firing secondary weapons, and other less-important tasks. The smooth and precise controls make this game stand out from the other Army Men titles, which have always been somewhat awkward to play.

Air Combat will win no awards for visual or audio presentation, but it manages to be decent in both. The rather blurry N64 graphics work well enough, but you'll get the feeling that the Fun Machine isn't working as hard as it could. The routine sound effects hover around mediocrity, but 3DO has managed to crank some decent tunes out of the N64's oft-derided sound chip, and that alone is worth a medal.

Mission Accomplished
It's a pleasure to be able to say that Army Men Air Combat is a good game. While it's not the best game ever on the N64, it's easy to recommend it for chopper-action fans and folks who are dying for a decent military shooter on the Fun Machine. It looks like the little green men over at 3DO have finally found the secret to bringing toys to life.