Army Men: Air Tactics was my first introduction to airborne Army Men growing up. As a kid, my mom got me this four-pack CD-ROM set from Sam's with Army Men, Army Men II, Army Men: Toys in Space, and Army Men: Air Tactics. I always spent most of my time playing Army Men II and Army Men: Toys in Space, but I do remember Air Tactics fondly. Unfortunately, it was a lot easier to play 20 years ago. I genuinely spent three or four hours finding it online (thank you, www.myabandonware.com), fiddling with the compatibility settings, giving up entirely on getting it to work on Windows 11, teaching myself how to set up a virtual machine, finding an ISO and CD key for Windows 95, installing that, and THEN installing Air Tactics on the virtual machine. A game designed for Windows 95 just does not like Windows 11. Was it worth all that effort? Ehh....maybe? The Army Men "Air" games have an exceptionally convoluted history as far as naming goes, so to avoid the confusion I had in one of the Army Men Discord servers, I'll try to explain it all here. The first Air game released which also introduce Captain William Blade as a Green protagonist was Army Men: Air Combat on PlayStation in late 1999. Then in March, 2000, Army Men: Air Tactics releases on Windows. In July, 2000, Air Attack is released on Nintendo 64 but under the title of Army Men: Air Combat; a Game Boy Color game with the same title would be released in November of 2000. Also in November of 2000, Army Men: Air Attack 2 would release on PlayStation. Then in March, 2001, Air Attack 2 released on PlayStation 2 but would inexplicably have the title changed to Army Men: Air Attack - Blade's Revenge in Europe, but only for the PlayStation 2 version; the PlayStation 1 version is still called Army Men: Air Attack 2 in Europe. Later that year in June, 2001, Army Men: Air Attack would release on Windows (it did not carry the Air Combat title; for some reason, that was just for Nintendo). Lastly, in March of 2003, Air Attack 2 released on Gamecube with the title Army Men: Air Combat - The Elite Missions. So, as you can see, it's a confusing release history. The tl;dr is that Air Attack/Air Combat came first, and they're the same game; then came Air Tactics; then came Air Attack 2/Blade's Revenge/The Elite Missions which are all the same game. Why they couldn't just pick one title and stick with it across regions and console manufacturers, I don't know, but it is what it is. Air Tactics isn't a 3D game like Air Attack; instead, it uses a modified version of the Army Men II engine to produce a 2D overhead view game. While you normally think of helicopter combat as taking place in a three-dimensional space - and it does, in a way - the 2D perspective works well here. I guess it's more accurate to call it a sort of pseudo-2.5D because you do move along the Z axis, but only in certain places that have ramp-like environmental features, and only up to a certain height; basically, you maintain a static hover above the ground, so the only way to "ascend" is to go somewhere with a gradually increasing elevation. Like in Air Combat, you follow Captain William Blade of Alpha Wolf Squadron. Most of his missions are a support role for Sergeant Hawk, but you do get to take on some pretty fierce Tan opposition as you're ferrying Hawk and his men around or softening up a beachhead for an assault. The story revolves around the Green Army's attempt to establish and maintain air supremacy and stop the Tan from developing some kind of chemical weapon of mass destruction. Visually, the game is pretty much identical to Army Men II. Some elements here and there look a touch improved, but overall, it's basically Army Men II with a helicopter. The visuals are honestly the highlight of the game; this era of advanced 2D in lieu of primitive 3D graphics is sorely underappreciated in my opinion. The sound design is...well, I honestly have no idea. Despite the fact that the sound worked normally on the desktop of my Windows 95 virtual machine, nothing I did made the sound work in game. From what I can remember from playing it over 20 years ago, it sounded great, but that could be the rose tinted headphones talking. What I can definitely speak to is the control, and it's not great. The helicopter feels SUPER floaty and imprecise with its controls. Granted, I'm using a modern mouse instead of an old school trackball this game would have been designed to use, so the oversensitivity of my mouse could be affected me here as it did in Army Men II and Army Men: Toys in Space, although considering that most reviews I've read also lament the controls - "driving a car on a field of Crisco," I believe, is how IGN's reviewer worded - I'm inclined to believe that the controls really are just bad. What I know for a fact isn't a problem caused by my modern mouse, though, is the hit detection. It was seemingly random whether my shots would hit a Tan soldier or harmlessly hit the area beside his feet. There would be bullets you can clearly see hitting him - bullet pixel on body pixel contact - but no damage, and then sometimes a bullet would clearly miss him, but you'd still see flakes of Tan plastic break off as he takes damage. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. Despite the horrific controls, the garbage hit detection, and the inexplicably absent sound during my playthrough, I have to admit that I did enjoy revisiting Air Tactics. It's definitely not what I'd call a high point for the series, but it's also not Major Malfunction, so it's at least not the worst game in the series. If you want to give this one a play these days, good luck; you'll either need a computer running Windows XP or earlier - maybe Vista at the absolute newest - or a virtual machine running ideally Windows 95 or Windows 98. I know that for most tech savvy people, virtual machines or dual boot PCs are no big deal, but it was a pain in the ass to teach myself how to set one up for literally the sole purpose of playing this one game. Do I regret that massive time investment? Not even a little; no Army Men game left behind. Would I recommend anyone else who doesn't already know how to set up a virtual machine go through the hassle just to play this game? Absolutely not. My Rating - D |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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