Army Men REVIEWS

[BlueSpy]

Army Men Preview

Remember when you were a kid playing with those little dime-a-dozen plastic army figures? You'd set up fortifications on either side of some shrubs or a little patch of dirt and then let the battle between the green and tan unfold. Well, 3DO, with their upcoming and succinctly titled Army Men, will attempt to bring that nostalgic microcosm of a battlefield to life. This action-strategy game is at once challenging and humorous, featuring those little synthetic knick-knacks that you so fondly remember, now fully animated and fighting it out in a real environment.

Army Men is a scrolling, 3-D, top-down perspective strategy game, albeit one that is a great deal more action-oriented than current real-time wargames on the shelf. You begin by choosing a map to set the stage and a commander (they roughly follow a plan of action toward one branch of the armed forces - an Army strategy that concentrates on land attacks, a Navy tendancy towards water assaults, an Air Force aim for air superiority, or a Marine-like attempt to grab land from the water) to pit your guys against. At your home base, you pick a command vehicle that you actually control (personnel and attack helicopter, tank, jeep, or boat), load it with units, and deploy the units in strategic areas. Maps of each battleground are rendered with different terrains of varying traversability. These maps contain separate object layers, so a tank or infantry unit will disappear from view when passing underneath a group of trees or other hovering objects. Units vary in function and size depending on the unit type - heavy or light infantry, grenadiers, or engineers. After deployment, each group of units will get back to you, identifying themselves and delivering status reports. The first side to destroy the opponent's base - whether it belongs to the computer or a live network player - wins the match. Units are capable of making some decisions on their own, but the player must take a very active role to achieve final victory. "The idea is that if you don't do anything and put a bunch of units out there, they'll kind of mill around, perhaps even fight a little, but they won't do anything serious unless you tell them to," says David Bunch, Army Men's director. This idea of constant control of small groups is in direct opposition to the current trend, found in many strategy titles, towards real-time control of large armies.

When you finally do achieve victory, you're treated to black and white WWII-era propaganda trailers starring computer-generated characters, complete with authentic film scratches and frame-jumps. Graphical details like these really add to the overall humor and believability of the game. For example, the seven death scenes you'll encounter during battle are consistent with the fact that you're actually dealing with toy soldiers - so if one of your guys takes a shot, his arm might snap off, or he might melt into a puddle of plastic, a single hand emerging from the remnants. All of the soldiers were designed using 3D Studio MAX with a plug-in called Character Studio that enables the artists to create a framework model of their intended subject and then map realistically moving textures on the finished skeleton. The end result is a phenomenally believable representation of what it might be like if plastic figurines actually came to life.

"I can't believe that nobody thought of this before," says Army Men producer Nick Earl. It's true - other titles such as Close Combat hark back to those days when you sat in the mud and enacted a miniature combat, but Army Men takes the toy soldier idea to its literal extreme. This game, which takes an otherwise static cast of characters and brings them to life, will certainly win over real-time strategy game fans, most of whom began their war-game days setting up battle scenarios with pocket-sized polyurethane troops.


Army Men II Review

The original Army Men was a decent game, though it didn't quite live up to many gamers' expectations. Awkward controls, dated graphics, and (on some missions) surprisingly difficult objectives detracted from the unquestionable allure of pitting those little plastic guys against one another. With Army Men II, 3DO seems to have corrected a number of the original game's issues. The problem is, Army Men II fails to cash in on its solid premise and ends up feeling more like a version 1.1 release than a full-fledged sequel.

As the game begins, a beautifully rendered scene sets the stage for the action: Green troops stumble across a pan-dimensional teleporter that transports them to a strange world (ours). Tan troops follow them through the portal, and a firefight breaks out on a kitchen countertop far, far away. If only the game continued on like this...

After an all-too-brief opening mission in which you must guide your troops past roaches and electric stovetops, you all get teleported back to the world of Army Men - where you will find yourself for most of the game. Every once in a while, you'll get another mission back in our world, but these pop up far too infrequently. Worse yet, not a single one of the maps from the "real world" missions is available during multiplayer games. What 3DO was thinking here, I honestly cannot fathom.

Gameplay is essentially the same as in the original game. Again, you command Sarge, a hard-nosed soldier who can not only handle every weapon known to man but also drive any manner of military vehicle (including PT Boats). You view the action from a top-down perspective and guide Sarge using the keyboard and/or the mouse. The default keys take some getting used to, but you can remap them. Mouse control is sufficient most of the time, but it's not as intuitive as what you'd find in a good real-time strategy game. In case you're wondering, your troops follow your lead around the map unless you select and assign them specific orders.

You can also order specific units or groups of units to attack, defend, hold position, or rally around you. Additionally, you can now save your game at any point during a mission, which is nice because some of the missions have several stages. Perhaps the best new feature, however, is the addition of experience ratings for your troops. Each solider under your command gets a little more proficient with each mission he survives. In other words, it is in your best interests to keep these boys alive for as long as possible.

Other new things to look out for: The game now offers a few new weapons, including the super-cool magnifying glass, an M80 (woo hoo!), and an aerosol can that can be used with lighters to do lots of wonderful damage. Sarge also gets to tote around a sniper rifle, which is perhaps the best weapon in the game.

Army Men II seems quite a bit more forgiving than the original, with well-stepped difficulty levels that let players of any skill level move through the game. Most missions are well designed, with interesting (and often familiar) objectives and settings. There are a handful of missions that seem to have just one too many objectives - you know, the type that just never seem to end - but the rest are well thought-out and fairly challenging.

Of course, the horrendous pathfinding adds considerably to the challenge. Your units simply can't find their way out of a foxhole, which means that you must guide them around the maps using baby-step destination points (click a little ahead, click just a little farther ahead, and so on). This proves to be extremely aggravating, especially on missions where time is a factor. Also, the pathfinding is at its absolute worst when controlling the PT Boat. Not only can the AI not find a simple path through the water (the wide-open water, mind you) but the game keeps jerking the camera angle back to center on the boat, even when I wanted to scan around for hostiles.

The soundtrack deserves mention. The music is a collection of classical pieces that at times fits the situation and at others seems terribly out of place. The cutscenes, on the other hand, are fantastic and for the most part funny (especially the scene that plays when you fail a mission).

Multiplayer support is strong, letting up to four players compete over IPX or TCP/IP connections. Head-to-head play over serial and modem links is also supported. Army Men II provides a good skirmish mode - one in which you can actually beat the computer - and also lets you fill in empty slots in a multiplayer game with AI opponents. The setup screen for multiplayer games is slick, but the selection of maps for these games is pretty weak. Where's that cool kitchen countertop map?

Overall, Army Men II is fun, but it's just not all that it could be (apologies for the weak Army joke...). Let's hope 3DO will patch the AI and the pathfinding and make some of those real-world maps available for multiplayer games. Until then, you'll probably only really like this one if you're already a big fan of the original.


Army Men: RTS Review

The Army Men franchise has been very successful for 3DO over the years, yet few Army Men games since the original have made it to the PC. It was probably only a matter of time before an Army Men installment let you control an entire brigade of those little green plastic men in a real-time strategy game, which is exactly what Army Men: RTS does. The game originally debuted on the PlayStation 2, but Army Men: RTS feels right at home on the PC. That's no doubt partly because it was created by Pandemic Studios, an experienced developer of real-time strategy games. Army Men: RTS maintains the broad appeal of the series, as its basic design makes it very easy for players to pick up and enjoy, though die-hard fans of the genre will find it frustrating at times.

Army Men: RTS places the Green army under your direct control in a series of campaign missions and single-scenario battles called the "great battles." The campaign has you chasing after a rogue Green general who joined your archenemy, the Tan army. Your pursuit will place you on battlefields ranging from a backyard to kitchen countertops. The owner of the house that's the stage for the battles in Army Men: RTS must be quite messy--there are toys and garbage spilled all over the place. The mess is a benefit to you, though. Some of the things lying around can be used to harvest resources. There are two resources you'll need to construct an army: plastic and electricity. Plastic can be found in items like dog bowls and action figures, and you can even harvest some from dead units. Electricity can be acquired by finding things like watches or flashlights. Some missions also have power-ups that will boost troops' speed or firepower.

The campaign has varying objectives for each mission. The Green army will face challenges like having to destroy a Tan base, capture an infinite source of power, or escape from a basement infested with ants. Each mission also includes two secondary objectives called medal goals. Completing one goal will grant you a silver medal, while finishing both will give you a shiny gold medal. Accumulating medals will unlock new great battle scenarios. Completing one medal goal in a mission is easy, but getting both goals can be quite difficult at times. That's because the goals can conflict with each other. For example, one goal may be to finish the mission in a certain amount of time, while the other requires you to find every power-up on the map. You most likely wouldn't find all the power-ups in time on a mission you're not familiar with.

Army Men: RTS plays like a standard real-time strategy game. While there are some missions where you have only a small squad of soldiers, most of them allow you to build a base and produce troops. In these cases, you'll start out with a bulldozer that is used to build structures like the HQ and the resource depot. The barracks produce infantry and the garage produces vehicles. All these buildings can be upgraded to produce advanced units. You can also build defensive structures like a sentry tower and an AA gun.

The units themselves are well prepared for the war against the Tan army. There are several types of infantry--the basic grunt, the grenadier, and the sniper are only a few of the little green men you'll command. There are also several types of vehicles like the tank and helicopter that support your infantry, and a medic vehicle can be deployed to repair units and buildings. You need to field a balanced army in order to survive encounters with the enemy. Grunts form the backbone of the Green army, but they get chewed up by just about anything if they don't have any backup. Part of putting together a balanced military force is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the different unit types--for example, tanks can't fire at air units, mortar men can only attack buildings, and bazooka men are effective against vehicles. There's quite a bit to keep track of, but not so much that it gets confusing.

Despite the variety of units, Army Men: RTS does have several limitations that will turn off hard-core RTS players. First of all, you can only create up to four unit groups. Considering that there are so many different types of units, this is a severe constraint. What makes it worse is the fact that you can't easily select units. You can't double-click on a unit to call up everyone of its type, so you'll have to rely on selecting them by clicking and dragging a bandbox around them. Fortunately, the bandbox won't select non-combat units when you're trying to select a group. In addition, the unit pathfinding in Army Men: RTS has some problems--units will normally find their way around obstacles with ease, but once your units get into large groups, they will have trouble trying to get around each other. This can make attacks really frustrating because your front-line units may get stuck behind other units, leaving weaker support troops unprotected. Another limitation that will disappoint some RTS fans is the lack of a random skirmish mode. The great battles aren't enough to bring added replay value to the game, especially since the environments seen in them are straight from the campaign.

The computer's artificial intelligence in Army Men: RTS is decent, but it also has a few weaknesses. Non-combat units will flee if they are attacked, and the medic will constantly move to heal injured units. Dump trucks will automatically find resources to harvest, and it will even set its own priorities according to your current stores of plastic and electricity. The major problem in the AI is the lack of a behavior setting. Your units will automatically move to attack enemies when they get within sight. It really becomes an issue when trying to destroy enemy defensive structures. Your mortar men need another unit to have the towers in their sight, but that unit will move to attack the tower unless you have it selected and constantly hit the S key to force it to stop.

The Green army will often employ hero units to get the job done. Cutscenes between every mission help add to the heroes' personalities. Sarge, the tough leader, is found in every mission. The other heroes are unique versions of other basic troops. Their presence adds character to the basic elements in the game, and as such it can be depressing to see them die in a mission.

The game's 3D graphics aren't incredibly impressive, but the game has enough style to make up for it. Each of the house's rooms is detailed thoroughly. The kitchen counter has stovetops and cutting boards with chopped onions, while the living room has video games and toys lying around everywhere. You would definitely get caught up in the game's whimsical nature if it weren't for Sarge's deadly serious tone. The rest of the game's audio is utilitarian--it gets the job done, but it isn't anything to write home about. The music is militaristic and well suited to the game, but it eventually becomes repetitive. The sounds themselves are bland, and most of the troop types have a small number of speech clips.

Overall, Army Men: RTS does a good job of creating a real-time strategy game based on the classic line of plastic toys. Although not particularly challenging, the campaign mode will keep you busy for a while. The lack of a skirmish mode is a drag, but at least there is a multiplayer mode in which you can challenge your friends to a plastic duel. The bottom line is that the game is very easy to play and quite fun despite its limitations. Gamers who have had no RTS experience will be able to dive right in. Meanwhile, though hard-core RTS players won't find Army Men: RTS to be one of the more sophisticated games in the genre, they'll at least be able to enjoy its originality.


Army Men: Sarge's War Review

When publisher 3DO went out of business last year, many figured that the company's inviolable Army Men brand would simply disappear right along with the company. That was until budget publisher Global Star Software came swinging to the rescue and took over the Army Men brand. Army Men: Sarge's War is the first Army Men game to appear under the Global Star name, and it sticks to basically the same level of quality for which most of the other Army Men games are known. Unfortunately, that isn't really saying much, and considering that there are literally dozens of better third-person-perspective, run-and-gun shooters on the market right now, it makes it pretty tough to recommend Sarge's War.

In Sarge's War, you play as Sarge, a gruff, battle-hardened, plastic soldier who commands a squad within the Green army. Like in the previous Army Men titles, your antagonists are the vile Tan army. However, Sarge's War actually starts out with the two sides working toward a peace agreement, with only a small sect of the Tan military holding out. Of course, this small sect almost immediately turns into a much larger threat, and eventually, it will be up to you to become an army of one, as it were, and smash up the renegade Tans. As much as this might sound like the makings of a good, old-fashioned shoot-'em-up, the action in Sarge's War sadly doesn't quite live up to the premise.

The biggest fault in Sarge's War is unfortunately with the gameplay and control design. The game controls like your typical third-person shooter, but the actual keyboard and mouse mechanics are pretty bad. The default control scheme itself is exactly what you would expect, but the movement sensitivity and mouse sensitivity feel more than a little broken. The turn buttons on the keyboard veer Sarge too far in the desired direction, which causes him to simply miss doorways and paths. Trying to turn Sarge properly using the mouse is too difficult, since no matter how high you crank up the mouse sensitivity, it never moves you far enough in whatever direction you're trying to turn. This is especially bad with the first-person targeting mechanic the game gives you the option to use. Once the aiming reticle pops up, you get such a limited range of motion (and a jittery one at that) that it basically negates any usefulness of this feature, which is especially frustrating during any mission where the sniper rifle would come in handy.

The auto-aim feature, while seemingly able to catch the closest target, doesn't seem to help much, except when using weapons with a wide fire-spread, such as the shotgun, or with a tight firing scope, such as the sniper rifle. Everything else seems to just hit or miss at random. The game also completely lacks any sort of useful cover mechanics. Yes, you can duck, but unless you're behind an especially sturdy object that won't blow up, it basically does you no good, as you can't shoot or even peer around corners, or do anything else that you can do in even the most rudimentary shooters these days.

Further compounding the general unpleasantness of Sarge's War's gameplay is the seemingly nonstop onslaught of dull missions. Each and every mission is exactly the same, with only a couple of varying objectives popping up from time to time. Usually you'll just have to pick up a conveniently placed time bomb and drop it on one of the Tan army's big pieces of artillery or onto a fence that's blocking your path, and in the time between finding the bomb and planting it, you can shoot every bad guy in your path. Occasionally, you'll find yourself using a turret gun or staving off marginally more difficult enemies (such as some elite Tan soldiers that can turn invisible); but for the most part, it's just a straight shot through each level with very few twists or turns to speak of. After about four to five hours, you should be done with the entire single-player game (at least it retails for a low price).

While the PC version of Sarge's War already has specific problems compared to the console versions, what really drives the nail in the coffin for the PC version is the complete lack of multiplayer. The Xbox and GameCube versions had a couple of rudimentary multiplayer modes, such as deathmatch and capture the flag. Granted, none of the multiplayer games were really all that great on consoles, but the fact that they are completely absent from the PC version is just insane, and lazy to boot.

Much like the console versions of Sarge's War, the PC version doesn't look particularly good. Aside from a slightly shiny plasticine look for the soldier models, everything in the game looks as drab as drab can be. Muddy textures, ugly set pieces, and level designs that actually seem like they were lifted right out of older Army Men games, make up the bulk of the graphical design, along with an erratic frame rate and subpar computer-generated cutscenes. Additionally, there is no way in the PC version to improve the graphics in the slightest, since there is no option to adjust the resolution. Most of the game's audio seems as though it were lifted off some generic, copyright-free sound effects and music CDs, and the voice acting is pretty much nonexistent, save for Sarge's gruff narration (that sounds as though the actor is channeling Michael Ironside's Sam Fisher just a little too hard for comfort) and the occasional diabolical cackles of the game's main villain. All told, it's pretty hammy, unpleasant stuff.

After playing through Army Men: Sarge's War, it's likely that you'll find yourself wondering why anyone bothered to salvage the Army Men license at all. Over the years, the series has shown its flashes of playability, but Sarge's War isn't one of them. This game never shows anything above the most minimal of efforts, and even then, it seems as though you're being entertained as if by accident.