Gameboy Color - Army Men Air Combat Review

This is the gameboy colour version of Army Men Air Combat, one of those top-down isometric helicopter shooters. You naturally play the Green army and have to complete missions in your helicopter.

Gameplay: 6/10

Much like other top-down isometric helicopter shooting this game has you choose your helicopter, co-pilot, read your mission briefing before heading into the game. The controls are normal. Forward pushes your helicopter forward, back moves backwards. Left and right turn. The A button launches and attack while the B button lowers down the winch to winch up power-ups and ammo. You can change weapons by pressing the select button. You have four weapons. A machine gun, a blind rocket, a homing rocket and some sort of napalm bomb I believe.

Unfortunately, while the helicopter and weapons handle fairly well alright, the game doesn't do too well in the other departments. You have only two choices of co-pilots in the game except for the last level so there isn't any real way to develop different approaches to different missions. There's certainly little need for someone who can winch stuff up better so you'll almost certainly choose the co-pilot with the machine gun abilities. Furthermore, with the machine gun's long range, you can actually sit back and safely attack the enemies from a distance making the other weapons useful only when you're in a hurry. As for the helicopter, the helicopters you use handle exactly the same except they are faster and deal more damage. There isn't any sense of handling a different craft which is certainly a shame. All in all, while the concepts are certainly there, they aren't brought out properly.

Graphics: 3/5

The graphics are mediocre despite smooth scrolling. It's fun to see flowers and other ordinary stuff as part of the battle field but otherwise there isn't really anything novel about them.

Sound and Music: 2.5/5

Boring and mediocre sound as well as music. The traditional army tunes get boring and the lousy weapon effects sounds are just down right annoying.

Game design: 2.5/5

Game design is where the game falls rather than flat. There are a variety of missions of course, but each one doesn't feel very different from the other. There is no sense of urgency or challenge in most of the 16 missions unless you decide to charge in and fly recklessly most of the time. The enemies simply have a shorter range than you so hanging back and pelting them with your machine gun as mentioned in the gaemplay section is usually the best option. Even escort missions are easy. Just zip ahead and clear the areas first and then return to the object you're escorting continue.

Perhaps the most memoriable missions are the ones where you have to protect the green bases from invading ants and the one where you have to change a green factory from producing brainwashed green troops fighting on the tan side to one which will produce normal green troops.

Longevity: 1.5/5

Army Men Air Combat contains only 16 missions and it probably won't last you very long considering the lack of any gameplay options most of these types of games have. You'll think you'll be able to get more pilots and helicopters but when you discover there isn't any change, you'll rightly give up this below average helicopter game.

For: Okay handling of the helicopter

Against: Boring gameplay, lack of mission variety, lack of gaming options

Game: Army Men Air Combat

Genre: Action

Produced by: Fluid Studios

Year: 2000

Platform: Gameboy Colour

Runs on: TGB dual

Scoring Summary

Gameplay: 6/10

Graphics: 3/5

Sound and Music: 2.5/5

Game design: 2.5/5

Longevity: 1.5/5

Total: 15.5/30

Rating:

52%

-Reviewed by Barnabas