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"Thanks to a new developer, there's finally a decent Army Men game!"

Introduction:
From what started as a series of pretty good RTS games, the Army Men series quickly became a quick cash in on a good idea. From the Army Men 3D Series to the Sarges Heroes Series to all the spin offs like Air Attack, they had great ideas, but lousy results. After years of destroying the Army Men name, 3DO finally went bankrupt. Leave it to Global Software, a budget-title division of Take-Two Interactive, to take the property and attempt to do it some justice. And for a first attempt, they did a pretty admirable job.

Graphics:
Even though graphics shouldn't be too important thats what most people look for, so we'll start here. The Army Men series has never been known for cutting edge visuals, and the trend continues, although this is much better than past iterations. The frame rate is great except maybe during the big explosions, but thats only for a few seconds. So in general, it runs silky smooth. The attention to detail is much improved over the others. most objects are destroyable like crates and vehicles and the explosions look pretty good. You can leave bullet holes everywhere and the coolest thing is that chunks of your character will fall out when your shot. I've actually had a hole missing from my stomach and head a few times. Its not important to game play, but its a neat little touch. The animations aren't great, but aren't too bad either. Sarge looks fine when running and shooting, but his jumping animation is kinda weird looking. So while it might have a stiff look to it, thats kinda the point seeing as though these are plastic toys, not real people. The level designs are great and help keep the game interesting. One minute your fighting in a torn up city of the Green Army, and next your in "the real world" inside a basement where everything is super-sized. Overall the graphics wont win any awards, but they get the job done well enough.
Overall: 7/10

Controls:
This area has always been a hindrance in the Army Men games. Free Aiming with the "R" Trigger works pretty good, and is used mostly with distant shots from the sniper rifle or from the Bazooka. New to this game is a lock on mode what works very similar to the syphon filter games. Push the "L" Trigger to lock on to the nearest enemy and hold it down to stay locked. You can then strafe and move around while shooting at them with ease... when it works. Unfortunately you have to be looking directly at them to lock on, and sometimes turning away will lose the lock-on. Even worse i had a few times where i was staring directly at the enemy and it still would lock-on to him. With some improvement, this could be a nice feature in the next game. Moving Sarge works well even if it is a little sensitive and having the right joystick to control the camera is a very nice feature, seeing as though past games had a TERRIBLE camera. You cant lay prone anymore, but you can walk around when your crouch to hide behind objects. The grenade lobbing is a hit-or-miss deal. It shows the arc and trajectory to make for accurate lobs, but you cant adjust the arc before you throw. You hold down the button and as it gets further away, you have to let go at just the right time. While the controls are better than past games, some of the issues i had did take away from the experience.
Overall: 6/10

Gameplay:
The meat and bones of any game, this is where it counts, and this is arguably the strongest point of this game. The story and game play is pretty straight forward. Malice, leader of the evil Tan army, is building a Weapon of mass-destruction and plans to wipe out the Green Army. Pretty much the same idea as the other games. The primary objectives range from destroying fuel depots and attack convoys to rescuing hostages. There are secondary objectives like finding the enemy war plans and the enemy flag that are hidden in each level. These unlock medals, but thats it. It does give you a reason to explore the environments if your a completist like me though. The enemy AI is nothing out of the ordinary, but thats a good thing in this case. In past game you could snipe out an enemy and the soldier next to him wouldn't even notice, but that doesn't happen this time. They perform typical movements and they will hide behind boxes and around corners taking potshots at you, which makes for entertaining fights. Fighting tanks and choppers is fun and there are many parts that require you to find a Time bomb and blow down a wall or door. Weapon variety is good, featuring an M1 Carbine with unlimited ammo, an assault rifle, automatic machine gun, shotgun, heavy machine gun, sniper rifle, flamethrower, bazooka and grenades. All the weapons have variety and are fun to use, although the lack of a mortar from the Sarge's Heroes game is a bummer. the flame thrower also loses points because the guys don't melt when you shoot them, they just fall to the ground. These are only minor nitpicks though.
Overall: 8/10

Sound:
Army Men Sarge's War has run-of-the-mill sound. The music, sound effects and voice overs are all just about average. nothing too special, but the explosions do sound very cool and the addition of backgrounds noise like screaming, bombing and shooting does give it some more atmosphere. Not too much to say here.
Overall: 7/10

Multiplayer
The Multi-player mode is what has always attracted me to the Army Men games. They're very simple, but very fun. Sarge's War has a good multi-player mode especially with 4 people. There is standard death-match, capture the flag, and flag control. Having teams of two makes for an entertaining time, but the levels are small enough so that 2 people can enjoy it too. That brings me to my biggest complaint, lack of levels. The level design in multi-player is great, but there are only 4 and there all the same in each modes of play! This is kinda inexcusable, but at least the 4 they gave as are pretty good. If you like the past games multi-player, this is pretty much more of the same.
Overall: 7/10

Replayability:
Once you complete the campaign missions, there no real reason to go back, except maybe at a different difficulty, but thats kinda pointless. The Campaign is also relatively short too, clocking in at around 6 hours. Collecting items in each level unlock a medal, but unlocking the medals gets you nothing besides being able to look at them. no unlockables here. The multi-player is good enough however to keep you and your friends coming back for more.
Overall: 5/10

Final Comments:
While this isn't going to be a breakout hit, it is going in the right direction. With a slightly darker tone and a little more polishing than the past games, having Global at the helms gives me hope that this series might eventually get the respect it deserves. If you have never liked an Army Men game before, rent it to give it a shot, and keep an eye out for future iterations, but this probably wont change your mind. For die hard followers or even casual fans of the series, BUY IT. I got ot for only 14.99 at blockbuster and they have it for around 20.00 elsewhere. It is definitely worth that price if you like these games.
Final Score: 7/10


Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/04