The Army Men series has been one of many ups and downs (sadly more of the latter) the original army men games on the PC are considered craptastic and for good reason, although the first 3D rendition (which also happens to be on the PSX) turned out to be at least mildly fun to play albeit boring at points, very little in the series has proven any better in all these years. Nonetheless, it seems the Army Men curse does not affect all games in the series as the first in Air Attack series which takes you from being a one man army attacking on foot to pretty much a one man army in a helicopter. Playing as Captain William Blade you have the abilities to use machine guns, bottle rockets, lock on missiles, and napalm missiles all which work in their own respect but one of the true innovations and fun in AMAA is the winch mainly during the game it just looks like a string on the bottom of your chopper but it has more then one use in the game. It helps remove obstacles, pick up passengers, items, and also pick up heavy things lying around the level to drop on an unsuspecting enemy.
Now, the graphics in the game range from okay to bland most of the levels are forest areas making for a lot of green ground and big trees being in your way and the soldiers below you are rather tiny and hard to make out you'll really require the map also to make it around in areas due to the fact you cannot see more then a few feet ahead of you at a time due to the camera's perspective. Although the game does look pretty good for what it's trying to convey it's just not the best graphics you'll ever see. Finally, I have to mention the Cooperative mode,very few games have modes like this anymore and it's a shame it's something a lot of us gamers who have been playing since the 80's really miss as games like Contra , Gauntlet, Ikari Warriors, and Final Fight was what we grew accustomed to but now every game is pretty much Deathmatch and little else. The Cooperative missions in AMAA are really good and harken back to those games of years past, it's identical to the Single Player missions but now you have backup which really makes a heck of a lot of difference as the game spikes in difficulty at a certain point in the main game where the difficulty is just way high up there trust me Co-Op is the way to go if you have a friend as you'll need them on the later levels and you'll hardly notice the split screen as it's done rather well. The game also has CTF and head to head combat but those games grow rather tired after a short amount of play.
All in all I like Army Men Air Attack but it's still not what I'd call a must buy game if you love Army Men you'll love this game if you don't you may be more suited to a rental. Review by Preston Kilday
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