The last time I played an Army Men game was back on the N64 and I wasn’t very impressed. After watching the opening scene for Army Men Air Combat: The Elite Missions I felt that maybe this game would be different than its predecessor. However, once the game started it reminded me of the same old bland gameplay that was in the N64 version, except these were air missions. The story of the game follows Captain William Blade, who is a helicopter pilot in the Green Army. It is up to Blade to thwart the evil plans of the Tan Army as they gain a monopoly on plastic resources and stop the evil Baron Von Beige from taking over the skies.

Gameplay:

The single player campaign places you against the Tan Army in 20 different missions taking place in 10 locations. You will also get to choose a co-pilot, each of which has their own special abilities that will help you on your mission. However, many of the missions seem more like fetch tasks than elite covert missions. Most of the time you’ll find yourself fighting off the bad guys while trying to take something of theirs back to your base, such as plastic resources. You will also be able to find power-ups, which upgrade weapons, armor, and even camouflage abilities, making the missions easier.

However, there is one thing that doesn’t help make the missions any easier, and that is the controls. Flying the helicopter isn’t easy, and takes quite awhile to get used to. The control stick, along with the D-Pad, controls the forward and backward movement of the chopper, and the left and right buttons control the lateral movement of the chopper in a strafing style. The A button controls simple machine gun fire, X controls the choppers special weapon and the Y button controls the co-pilot’s weapon.

Army Men Air Combat: The Elite Missions also has a variety of multiplayer and co-op missions you can do. You and your friend can join together and tackle single player missions against the evil Tan Army. You can also go head-to-head against each other in several modes. Some of the modes included in the game are deathmatch, capture the flag, and bug hunt, an insect slaughter-fest where the winner is the chopper with the most bugs splattered.

Graphics:

The graphics in the game aren’t much better than any other Army Men game, even the N64 version. The only places the graphics shine are in the cut-scenes. The in game graphics are very flawed, and need a great deal of polishing. Object can go through other objects, explosions are weak and disappointing, and the graphics just don’t look any better than that of the N64 army men game.

Sound:

The sound in the game is poor. Most of the sound effect in the game weren’t very impressive, and army style music can get repetitive. Once again this is where the cut-scenes shine, as the voice acting is fairly good. However, I did have trouble distinguishing a few people apart because they both sounded like the same guy. Sound stay in the war movie genre, but is average at best.

Final Comments:

Overall, it seems like Army Men Air Combat: The Elite Missions was poorly put together and rushed to be released. The game seemed promising at first glance, but once the game actually started, I was once again disappointed by the lack of creativity from 3DO. The game is very repetitive and the missions are not very fun. If you are a giant Army Men fan, even you should rent the game first. For all the other gamers out there, Army Men offers nothing but weak gameplay and will leave many gamers crying “Mayday!”