Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the yard … another Army Men title shows up and mucks up your day. And while the turkey that is Army Men: Sarge’s War may not be bad enough to finally put a stake into the heart of the Army Men franchise, it is definitely one more nail in the coffin.
First let’s get one thing straight, this is a budget title at only $14.99. At that price there is only so much that can be expected. Global Star Software also wisely chose to release this game in the off season where it would not become instant roadkill as it was run over by triple-A titles. I therefore have to give Global Star’s marketing department full marks for making the best of a bad situation.
And then there is the game. I know we all thought we had seen the last of the Army Men games when 3DO went belly up. But when you’re having a fire sale, someone is going to pick up that smelly, moth-eaten, eye-sore of a stuffed moose head and stick it on the wall – if the price is cheap enough. Take Two Interactive bought the moose head and is trying to resell it under its Global Star Software label. And while the game does have some good points, overall it feels incomplete and rushed to market.
The story is a throw-away. On the eve of a peace treaty between the green and tan nations a renegade tan-army faction plants a bomb at the treaty-signing ceremony and kills Sarge’s squad. Now it is personal and Sarge becomes a one-man storm of death on the forces of Malice, the evil tan commander … yada, yada.
Putting aside the boring mission and level design, the gameplay is the element that ultimately kills the game. The designers made some control decisions that just cannot be stomached. Not only are the controls badly laid out – when compared to just about every other third-person shooter out there – if you actually master the controls you’re still left with some glaring omissions and flaws. To make the clunky controls less of a hindrance, the designers gave the player a target lock-on button. Unfortunately, several times I pressed the button to lock onto an enemy and found myself facing away from the foe I was trying to target with no one in front of me. That is just plain weird. When I did properly lock on, the results were (pardon the pun) a rather hit-or-miss affair. The act of taking cover was actually addressed in the tutorial, but good luck taking advantage of it. A third of the time the box I hid behind was destructible and I found myself with no cover. Another third I was behind the box with no way to do a strafe maneuver or lean out left or right to engage the attackers who had made me take cover in the first place. The only way to shoot them was to break cover. Only seldom was cover of a type the player could crouch behind and pop over the top to take a shot without completely breaking cover. Strategy lesson: don’t take cover at all and just engage enemies when they are first seen.
Graphically the game is not bad. The environments of backyard sandboxes and play forts are fairly pleasing. I did encounter one graphical glitch where Sarge disappeared and for a short time I was just a rifle floating in mid-air shooting baddies, but it cleared up. The audio is a mixed bag. While the sound effects overall were good, someone was not paying attention at the mixing board and cut scenes tended to have far less volume than the game itself. I found myself constantly adjusting the volume of my TV to keep it at a comfortable listening level.
There is a multiplayer element to the game. It is only 4-player, split-screen on one console with the normal deathmatch and capture-the-flag modes, but since it is plagued by the same play issues as the single-player mode, it is really not worth mentioning as a selling point.
If memory serves me correctly, this game started development under 3DO’s leadership. It appears the game may have had a rather schizophrenic development cycle after their demise. That could explain some of the problems. Whatever the ultimate cause, the gameplay shortcomings make this a title that cannot be recommended, even at its bargain-basement price. The only thing that saves this game from a 1/5 score is the fact that Global Software did recognize they had a weak title and priced it accordingly. If you’re an Army Men collector and just have to have the entire line, the $14.99 is not too painful.
© 2004 GameShark.com
