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I've been playing Army Men - Air Combat recently.
It's a bit of a strange series of games when you first get into it.
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That's actually a picture from a later game, but just to illustrate my point.
Like, you're playing as one of those army men, and your guns are real, and you're fighting against these army men who can shoot you down with real bullets. But you're also very aware that you're one of the life-sized Army Men and that everything else is bigger than you.
Like, that's a piece of paper that guy is standing on. That giant wooden surface is a normal-sized table.
So I also feel like I'm in Toy Story because the Army Men are toys.
It's a pretty cool concept, especially in a later mission where you get attacked by fucking ants.
Seriously. Ants. There's millions of them coming out of an anthill.
I literally just finished fighting off a real-life ant infestation in my real-life house, and thanks to that, I'm a little bit spooked by the bastards.
This game threw more ants at me.
Much more.
Interestingly, I discovered that the way to repel the ants is to move all of the food into the enemy's base.
That way, the ants will go for the food and attack the enemies in their path.
I actually completed the mission by having the ants literally destroy all the enemy soldiers. It was incredible.
And it made me appreciate ants a bit more. And I wasn't so fearful of them anymore.
Not to mention, the previous mission had me freeing bugs and stuff (the bugs were being held captive in enemy research facilities, and once they were free, they started destroying all my enemies).
It's strange for a game to make me feel this way.
Though the next mission had me dropping bombs on anthills and literally exterminating ants everywhere I went, so I guess it goes both ways.
I never played any of the Army Men games when I was a kid. I was busy playing Command & Conquer instead.
But playing this stuff now is quite an experience, especially on the N64.
There is some negative stuff about the game, of course, but not too much.
Such as the fact that the levels seem a bit too long and the maps are a bit too big. I spent like 45 minutes finding that last anthill. The bombs you carry can explode prematurely if you take too long. Some of the weapons are downright useless, and I've found no easy way to switch between different types of ammo.
In the second mission, you have to escort a train through enemy territory.
(It's a toy train which runs on a battery.)
The train runs really fucking slow. Really, really slow. It took 15 minutes of real time to travel from one end of the map to the next.
Plus, all the enemies seem to respawn depending on the train's progress, which is a real bastard considering I deliberately tried to clear them out beforehand.
But for as long as it keeps my concentration, the game itself is still pretty decent.
So far, anyway. I've reached Mission 7 and still going strong.
It still feels like I'm play-fighting in some kid's gang war or something, blowing up all these toy bases which are smaller than a chocolate chip cookies. And everytime a soldier dies, they let out this realistic death-cry and disappear from the map. But either way, it's enormous fun.
It's a bit of a strange series of games when you first get into it.
That's actually a picture from a later game, but just to illustrate my point.
Like, you're playing as one of those army men, and your guns are real, and you're fighting against these army men who can shoot you down with real bullets. But you're also very aware that you're one of the life-sized Army Men and that everything else is bigger than you.
Like, that's a piece of paper that guy is standing on. That giant wooden surface is a normal-sized table.
So I also feel like I'm in Toy Story because the Army Men are toys.
It's a pretty cool concept, especially in a later mission where you get attacked by fucking ants.
Seriously. Ants. There's millions of them coming out of an anthill.
I literally just finished fighting off a real-life ant infestation in my real-life house, and thanks to that, I'm a little bit spooked by the bastards.
This game threw more ants at me.
Much more.
Interestingly, I discovered that the way to repel the ants is to move all of the food into the enemy's base.
That way, the ants will go for the food and attack the enemies in their path.
I actually completed the mission by having the ants literally destroy all the enemy soldiers. It was incredible.
And it made me appreciate ants a bit more. And I wasn't so fearful of them anymore.
Not to mention, the previous mission had me freeing bugs and stuff (the bugs were being held captive in enemy research facilities, and once they were free, they started destroying all my enemies).
It's strange for a game to make me feel this way.
Though the next mission had me dropping bombs on anthills and literally exterminating ants everywhere I went, so I guess it goes both ways.
I never played any of the Army Men games when I was a kid. I was busy playing Command & Conquer instead.
But playing this stuff now is quite an experience, especially on the N64.
There is some negative stuff about the game, of course, but not too much.
Such as the fact that the levels seem a bit too long and the maps are a bit too big. I spent like 45 minutes finding that last anthill. The bombs you carry can explode prematurely if you take too long. Some of the weapons are downright useless, and I've found no easy way to switch between different types of ammo.
In the second mission, you have to escort a train through enemy territory.
(It's a toy train which runs on a battery.)
The train runs really fucking slow. Really, really slow. It took 15 minutes of real time to travel from one end of the map to the next.
Plus, all the enemies seem to respawn depending on the train's progress, which is a real bastard considering I deliberately tried to clear them out beforehand.
But for as long as it keeps my concentration, the game itself is still pretty decent.
So far, anyway. I've reached Mission 7 and still going strong.
It still feels like I'm play-fighting in some kid's gang war or something, blowing up all these toy bases which are smaller than a chocolate chip cookies. And everytime a soldier dies, they let out this realistic death-cry and disappear from the map. But either way, it's enormous fun.
