Format: Advance
Genre: Action
Developer: Titus Software Corporation
Publisher: Mastiff, LLC

Titus Game. This is probably the very best Titus can do. That's not saying all that much. Combat Zones plays alot like a very weak Desert Strike knockoff. To start off, this one is the very definition of painting a nugget of shit gold. Ascetically it looks decent from the screenshots, but the actual action in game is a cut between being blind or being bored as hell. The action in this game is slow. REALLY SLOW. you'd think a game about fighter jets would be fast, but as it turns out in typical Titus fashion, they can't make games for shit. Sadly, this is probably one of their better games too. The action takes place in one of three different types of screens. the top-down screen where you go around and blow things up like desert strike is VERY VERY SLOW. The controls in this mode are also a bit confusing at first. You have 5 lives per "mission" and infinite retries. That's the saving grace of this game. The buttons are confusing because you explicitly have to switch between air attacks and ground attacks, which the game's own tutorial never talks about. You also have an array of missile arsenals to deploy. Each of them can be Air or Ground as well. You can see how this starts to get a bit confusing. Most missions in this mode are something like "Go destroy all the helicopters" or "Go blow up these buildings I hate!". The other 2 modes are a bit more jarring. The sidescroller mode which I'll call "assault mode" puts you in a 2D plane(HAAAAAAH) while throngs of fighter jets blow in from the right side. In this mode the enemies will shoot or use heatseeking rockets to take you out. This is often finished up by having to destroy a "bomber" boss who just stays on the right side of the screen while the little fighter jets run into you and kill you. The third mode this game offers is a wannabe starfox mode where you have the screen rushing towards you constantly and enemies appearing in the distance as they come towards you. Essentially it's the same as assault mode but with a different view. Now then... Let's begin. This game is a desert strike knockoff, it's clear. No attempt was made to hide that fact OR the fact that they have no idea how hitboxes work. The controls are also fairly bad, the movement is slow, and I spent most if not ALL of my time simply trying to "line up" properly so I could hit the targets. The game has a very stickly movement control to it, I think 8 directions, so you'll be lining up ALOT. The music was something you'd expect out of an aging hipster's love of 80's music. The sound effects themselves were subpar and sometimes scratchy. The storyline of the game itself was all over the place. I'm pretty sure this game was a propaganda game too. You fight in "the training grounds" then "Asia" then "The Persian Golf"(isn't that supposed to be gulf???). Finally you go to fight "the enemy" in Russia. They never said who "The Enemy" was. But oh boy, did I save the best part for last. The game's main programmer was also the Lead Tester! But wait! there's more! This is one of those few gems of a game that is too precious to allow just anyone to pick up and play. That's why Titus decided to go above and beyond with anti-piracy efforts to make this game hard for anyone to pirate. When you boot up this game, it checks the save-feature of the game and tries to write a line of code that will lock out being able to select anything in the main menu. To defeat this just simply turn off your save features or change to EEPROM saving. Dear Titus, Stop making games.

Hot Tips: Avoid playing Titus games.

All in All, the 4.5 score is once again generous for a Titus title. This game had many many many issues, from hitboxes, to non-existent plots, to boring slow gameplay, and so on. My favorite issue was how everything in the game had an icon EXCEPT the Russian train mission. This was probably Titus at it's best, sadly.