Games Beaten in 2024 - 19
* denotes a replay
January (1 Game Beaten)
February (1 Game Beaten)
March (3 Game Beaten)
April (7 Games Beaten)
May (7 Games Beaten)
18: Army Men: Air Combat - The Elite Missions - Gamecube - May 21
19. Army Men: RTS - Gamecube - May 29
Army Men: Air Combat - The Elite Missions continues 3DO's weird insistence on giving games different titles on different systems and, in this case, different regions. On PlayStation, this game is called Army Men: Air Attack 2. On PlayStation 2, it is also called Army Men: Air Attack 2, but only in North America; in Europe, it's called Army Men: Air Attack - Blade's Revenge. Here on Gamecube, it's called Army Men: Air Combat - The Elite Missions. I don't know why they couldn't just pick a damn title and stick with it - at the very least, keep it consistent across regions for PS2 and just call it Air Combat 2 on Gamecube - but alas, here we are with a naming scheme that would put Nintendo's winners to shame.
Army Men: Air Combat - The Elite Missions is a direct sequel to Army Men: Air Combat. Before I play a game, I often browse other players' and critics' reviews to see what they liked and disliked so I can pay attention to that and see if I agree. One of the things I noticed when doing that here is that - unsurprisingly - IGN is an utterly worthless source of reviews because their reviewer clearly didn't even play the damn game. They talk about how this is "the Gamecube version" of Air Combat "on Nintendo 64." Uhh, no. No it's not. It's a sequel. Yeah, there are some similarities because 3DO was pumping these games out like Russia pumps out war crimes, but they're absolutely not the same game. Baron von Beige, the primary antagonist in this game, didn't even appear in Air Combat. Literally the opening cut scene introduces him. It's like calling Star Wars: The Phantom Menace an expanded remaster of Star Wars: A New Hope. It's just objectively wrong in every sense, and I'm honestly surprised even "6/10 too much water" IGN would have such an egregiously lazy reviewer on their payroll. Anyway, this is why I make a point to play through every game before I review it or at the bare minimum play a good ten or twenty hours at least - it ensures I actually know what the hell I'm talking about.
Having established Green air superiority during the vents of Air Combat and Air Tactics, Tan dictator Plastro hatches a new plan to take the skies from the Green - ace pilot Baron von Beige, an obvious reference to Manfred von Richthofen, a World War I German fighter ace more commonly known as "The Red Baron" who was credited with 80 aerial kills. Baron von Beige is the only pilot who can match Captain Blade's skill in aerial dogfighting, although Beige flies a World War I style triplane. He also likely references Darth Vader from Star Wars as both are extremely skilled fighter pilots, both are shot down in the end of the movie/game, and both are (except for Vader's death scene) never seen or heard speaking without their masks. Regardless of whom he does or does not reference, Baron von Beige begins relentlessly attacking Green Army positions in an attempt to draw out Captain Blade. Blade, being a cocky Top Gun esque hot head, falls for the bait, and his entire squadron is shot down. Over the course of the game's 20 missions, you have to rescue your team (two or three times...), attack Tan factories and installations, and eventually confront Baron von Beige in a one-on-one dogfight (minus the infinitely spawning ground units that will attack you throughout the final battle).
Visually, the chips fall about where you'd expect; PS1 looks the worst with Gamecube and PS2 looking pretty on par. I thought the Gamecube version looked just a hair better, but it felt like the PS2 version ran just a little smoother in some places. They're so close, though, that both of those could just be in my head. Props to the PS1 version, though; while it looks pretty rough compared to the two 6th gen versions and doesn't run as smoothly, it looks a lot better than I expected to. It seems like 3DO finally figured out how to use the PS1's hardware pretty well by this point. It still doesn't look as good as some of Sony's first party games or some of the major big budget third party games on the system, but for an Army Men game on PS1, I was impressed. Sound design is also pretty good here. Music is solid, sound effects are pretty great, and the voice acting is good...in the context of Army Men, anyway. It's still cheesy as hell, but that's part of the series's soul. The most important part - the gameplay - is also solid. I don't know if I had some settings messed up or what, but the controls felt a bit clunkier and more awkward than they should on PS2. It controlled as fine as you could expect with a D pad on PS1, and it felt amazing to play on Gamecube, but something about the controls on PS2 just felt a little off to me, and I never could quite put my finger on why. Regardless, though, even with the unexplainable awkwardness of the PS2 version's controls, it doesn't take too long to get used to. This really is a pretty smooth and comfortable aerial combat game.
Army Men: Air Combat - the Elite Missions on Gamecube (or Army Men: Air Attack 2 if you're playing one of the PlayStation versions) is definitely one of the better games in the series. I'd personally put it at #4 - below Army Men II, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, and Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2; but above Army Men: Air Combat/Air Attack. I strongly recommend playing the Gamecube version if you can - between the visuals and the controls, it's definitely the best version of the three. Failing that, go for PS2. If, somehow, you don't have a PS2, a Gamecube, or a Wii, then PS1 is still a good option. Despite being the obviously weakest of the three versions both mechanically and visually, it still plays surprisingly well and is absolutely worth playing if you don't have access to one of the two 6th gen versions. The game had some bugs I noticed towards the end, but nothing that prevent me from progressing or that I found particularly irritating. It's worth owning this game not only to have on your shelf with your other Army Men games but to play and replay occasionally; it really is a genuinely fun time. It's one of three Army Men games on Gamecube, one of seven Army Men games on PlayStation 2, and one of ten Army Men games on PlayStation. If you're collecting for any of those systems or for this series, make sure this one gets a spot on your shelf; it actually deserves one which is more than some of its compatriots can say.
Real time strategy seems like kind of a natural fit for the Army Men series, but it took until the end of 3DO's life to make that a reality. 3DO didn't even release the Gamecube version two and a half years after the PS2 and PC releases; Global Star handled that port after acquiring the Army Men IP in the wake of 3DO's collapse. RTS games on console had long been attempted with several seeing releases on Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Saturn, but Army Men RTS was one of the first that really felt "right." Starcraft 64 was solid, but it didn't feel quite fluid enough with the controls to be on par with its PC counterpart; Army Men RTS, on the other hand, is the best console RTS in my opinion until the release of Halo Wars three and a half years later.
The game's story follows Sergeant Hawk and his Bravo Company commandos as they push across Tan lines to take out Colonel Blintz, a Green officer who defected to the Tan after being shot in the head. The game's story makes multiple allusions to the film Apocalypse Now which itself is based on Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness, even to point of Blintz's final line of dialogue in the game being "The horror, the horror," a direct quote from Heart of Darkness antagonist, Kurtz. I utterly loath Heart of Darkness thanks to the insanely deep analysis of it I had to do when I took AP English IV, but I can't deny its literary value, so referencing a film based on the book definitely pleases the academic in me.
The game features a 15 mission campaign that tells the story in addition to a set of "Great Battles" which are missions designed for building large bases and longer engagements as well as "Special Operations" which are missions with some very specific objectives. All in all, it's got a good bit of content with 23 missions over those three game modes. If you're playing on PC, there's also a multiplayer option, although since it relied on GameSpy, you have to jump through some hoops to get that to work. As you're building up your forces and fighting your way through the missions, you'll naturally have to keep an eye on resource management, a staple of any RTS game. While games like Age of Empires hit you with numerous resources to manage, Army Men RTS takes a page out of Starcraft's book; your only resources here are plastic and electricity both of which can be harvested from toys strewn about the world.
Army Men RTS actually looks pretty decent for a mid budget game, and unlike most of the series, it actually hit pretty good marks on each part of my checklist. The story is, while basic, well done to provide a context for the game's campaign. The visuals, as I just mentioned, look good. My only complaint there is the explosions; they're sort of a soft explosion like in the Toy Story 2 game on N64 if anyone played that instead of the more visceral explosions we saw in Army Men II and Army Men: Toys in Space. The sound design is good with some decent even if not stunning music and the solid voice acting that we've come to expect with the Sarge's Heroes universe games. Jim Cummings continues his performance of literally every single character in the game except for Vikki, and it's his performance, I think, that really elevates the game's sound design; the beneficial effect that just having a good voice actor can have for a game really can't be understated, and Jim Cumming's performance gives the game a light-hearted and humorous feel that fits the "toy soldiers" motif perfectly.
The biggest hurdle that RTS games on consoles always face is with control, and perhaps surprisingly give the mediocrity for which the Army Men series is known, 3DO and Global Star really nailed the controls here. It would take until Halo Wars three and a half years and a whole console generation later and developed with a significantly larger budget for a console RTS game to surpass Army Men RTS in controls. Deselecting units can be a little awkward, but selecting and directing your units feels completely natural, and that's the most important element of RTS control. Rather than having to select a specific building, you just hold the R button and can use up and down on the D pad to cycle through building menus to make the units or structures you want to build. Barbed wire fences also automatically appear connecting guard towers and fence posts as long as they're positioned properly. A lot of the things that were either cumbersome or omitted from past console RTS games have been creatively fixed here. RTS may not do much to shake up the typical RTS formula, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has endured for so long for a reason.
Army Men RTS, while sadly 3DO's last Army Men game, is also one of their best Army Men games. I, personally, still prefer the tactics games on PC and the third person shooters on Nintendo 64, but as far as quality goes, RTS definitely deserves a place right beside Army Men II and Sarge's Heroes 2. The game's PC version has been updated and made easily playable on modern machines thanks to GOG, and considering that the PlayStation 2 is the best-selling console of all time, I imagine a lot of people still have one of those, making that version an option. I'm naturally partial to the Gamecube version given that that's the version I played growing up and is on a Nintendo platform, but I've tried all three versions, and there's not a bad choice to be had. Whether you go PC, PS2, or Gamecube (the real gamer's choice), Army Men RTS is a game that is worth checking out whether you're a fan of the series or not.
