1. Army Men (1998)
2. Army Men II (1999)
3. Army Men: Toys in Space (1999)
4. Army Men: World War (2000)
Instead of reviewing them like I usually do. I figured since they are all strikingly similar. Why not do a composite review. Yes I will point out things for a particular game. At least you won't see me possibly repeating myself four times. I also chose to do that to make it easier to follow my Army Men series review.
Before I begin, I only have one Army Men game I could review soon. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes on Nintendo 64 often stated to be one of the best in the series. Speaking of that I do need to clear a huge misunderstanding people have with this franchise. Despite the short time 3DO was releasing Army Men.
There do exist several good Army Men games. In fact I'm reviewing three of them in this blog entry. I did want to do a joke but I noticed with recent holiday specials getting hit from people. I decided to not reveal to tell my joke. I will confirm it would've been about the tan army. I would've took time to clarify just enough to hopefully not have people getting upset over it.
All four of these Army Men games plays very similar to each other. In all of them you get a map you can see while traveling to each level. Just like Army Men RTS, there are several objectives in order to complete the game. I do need to clarify something else. Many Army Men games are on multiple platforms.
However here is a strange case that both Army Men: World War games just the first one are in fact two very different games. Sarge is in the PlayStation 1 that plays similar to Army Men 3D. Maybe I can talk about that one in the near future too. In Army Men, there's three campaigns that do connect together. In the other three Army Men games they simply became acts in one campaign.
Army Men II allowed you to use your allies in many ways. In all four of them you can drive several vehicles. You do have other enemies than the tan army through out all their campaigns. Army Men: Toys in Space is possibly the worst Army Men game I ever played. I get why they wanted to bring up space stuff but it just wasn't meant to be.
Out of all five Army Men games, Toys in Space really unbalanced in it's difficulty. Some levels are very tedious & likely to lose since the game doesn't hold back. The perfect example is you must rescue civilians while fighting off both tan & alien armies. The game will even tell you, the more you rescue the harder it will be.
OMG there aren't kidding you could have a handful of enemies to a ridiculous amount going in several directions. Let's be honest Toys in Space has the worst story out of all five of them on GOG. What's sad is Toys in Space technically suppose to be Army Men III. Honestly I highly recommend you do not play it.
I do recommend the other Army Men games in this blog. Control wise despite all their default controls being very different. You can quickly get use to them. But if you can't don't worry you can change them. Army Men II ends up being the most fun out of them. I would say Army Men 1 can be very challenging but also satisfying.
Army Men: World War is a great over looked classic. It is a shame the worse PlayStation game is the one most people know. For anyone saying oh you need Sarge to make it a great Army Men game. Here is one Army Men game without him that's great in it's own right. Army Men games can be frustrating sometimes for some parts to missions that aren't clear.
Even after a lot of trial & error, sadly there isn't a lot of guides you can use. I would say if you are having a difficult time. Why not go the cheat route since some parts of these games are very strict. Some parts also has a lot & I do mean a lot of enemies in several areas. Overall four out of five Army Men games on GOG is well checking out.
Army Men: Toys in Space by no surprise to anyone is a huge disappointment. There are some areas it does improve over the previous games. At the same time, you have what seems like unforgiving difficulty at times. The actual plot is not screaming Army Men at all. I had a Small Soldiers game on PlayStation that's better than this.
You can probably guess that game sucks too. Army Men II in particular is my big recommendation here. Sure it isn't as good as Army Men RTS but it really is the next best Army Men game to play. Out of all their default controls I found Army Men II's to be the best. Sure trying to fire or throwing something could be a little annoying.
I will say Army Men II had some great missions that kept my interest high. Army Men I would say is probably under Army Men: World War. The main reason why is it improved on things that did annoy me in the original. This game was also said to have the best multiplayer experience of the franchise too.
Mostly because of those reasons as well as some missions in Army Men 1 took much longer to get through. Sure it is a difficult game but it does just enough to piss you off to push on through. Rather than giving up to do something else or play another game. Which is very likely the case with Toys in Space.
Earlier I talked about cheats, some of them are actually funny. I noticed two Austin Powers quotes as codes in Toys in Space & World War. In three of the four Army Men games you have to input the codes during game play. Thankfully in Army Men 1, you have to pause the game. There's a great variety of maps in all of them.
Remember earlier I talked about 3DO releasing a lot of Army Men games? Can you believe just on PlayStation 1 there's ten of them? Yeah three of those games are on Nintendo 64. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was the only Army Men game to be released on an Sega console. Believe it or not, I had this version many years ago.
Recently I found out this version is an enhanced N64 port. Which means cut scenes found in PC & PS version are not present. Maybe now I should find some time to play enough of it to review for any fellow Army Men fan out there. This is sadly a dead franchise that's been buried due to a lot of great games since then.
For me a treasure hunt for a great Army Men game was a fun experience. According to my research looking up several websites. There's only four Army Men games on PC left that could be on Steam & GOG. Army Men RTS is still my favorite Army Men game but Army Men II does deserve some respect.
No comments:
Post a Comment