I imagine the dubious past record of Army Men games is well known to just about everyone reading this, but if not then here’s the deal: If you remember the plastic Soldiers in the excellent Toy Story movie then you’ll get the idea; the retro plastic soldiers (Army Men) have lots of adventures either in our world or their own, and usually in games that are most politely described as “disappointing”.
Sarge's War is a third-person 3D combat action game, a mixture of shooting action and puzzling (of the ‘find important thing “A” and take to “B” ‘ sort) set in a war torn “Their World" (where all the plastic soldiers come from) and our “real” world (where they’re just tiny toys). Playing as Sarge you travel between these two worlds via portals. All of the army men, both the good, Green ones like Sarge, and some of their mortal Tan enemies who wanted to make peace, have been wiped out in a brutal Tan ambush (even Sarge’s love interest Vikki (arguably the best thing about the Army Men games), and now the Tan have found a new weapon of mass destruction that can reduce a platoon of soldiers into a mass of melted plastic. So as a Rambo-style army of one, Sarge goes to war against the whole of the Tan Army, now under the leadership of the evil Lord Malice.
After what seems like hundreds of less than impressive Army Men games covering several genres, Sarge’s War initially looks to have finally got things right. The player controls Sarge in fairly typical third person shooter, and some of the oversized (our world) settings are great. Gameplay is similar to Sarge's Heroes with more emphasis on actual combat tactics that require the player to use cover and even a bit of stealth from time to time. Specific weapons are also required to defeat certain enemies, and although there’s still plenty of “run and gun” action” Sarge's War is harder edged than previous games in the Sarge's Heroes series, and although only 12 levels long it’s no mean challenge to complete.
Both the enemies and Sarge himself take real time visible damage, such as dynamic holes and missing limbs – you can even shoot the heads off Tan soldiers and they’ll hilariously keep firing blindly, often taking out their fellow Tans in the process. There are standard medipacks dotted around the levels but Sarge can also collect plastic chunks from fallen enemies to heal his wounds. For a nice change in an Army men game, Sarge is pretty well animated and has plenty of moves, he can crouch and duck walk, forward roll, shoot and in first person mode shoot, snipe and climb ladders to access higher levels.
Graphics are tidy if not overly impressive. The real world levels give a good feeling of scale and in Sarge’s world everything looks like a scale toy. The enemy A.I. is pretty good too; they will seek cover, hunt, patrol, outflank, attack, and even avoid the player when damaged. The levels vary in size and load in sections, you can backtrack through these to search for health ups and the “hidden” enemy flag that’s on every level – finding these and completing the missions earns you medals…
Surprisingly enjoyable for an Army Men game, the only problem we had with Sarge’s War was the control setup. Rather than using the standard controls that just about every third person shooter has happily used from Max Payne through Conflict Desert Storm, Brute Force, Splinter Cell to Red Dead Revolver, 3DO decided we needed a lock-on/strafe button (the left trigger) Metroid Prime/GTA-style – we didn’t like it in those games, and we don’t like it now – to compound the problem the fire button is mapped to A, and the R trigger is simply used to switch to first person. The general clunkiness of this setup and the inneffectual "lock-on" function means that you'll sometimes find yourself right next to an enemy who you can't lock onto, or even worse, facing completely the wrong direction as someone shoots you in your plastic arse. Now listen here game developers, get this: The R Trigger is TRIGGER shaped and positioned like a TRIGGER for a reason, it’s for FIRING weapons with, so don’t mess around with it, K? – K. Inflexible control options don’t let you remap the buttons to any sort of sensible setup either, so you’re stuck with annoying, ineffective lock on/strafe button that seriously detracts from the action rather than adding to the level of control – it’s a real shame when you sometimes feel like you’re fighting the enemy and the control system.
There’s a nice mixture of weapons, from the bog standard Carbine to the sniper rifle, HMG (Heavy Machine Gun), grenade launcher and naturally a Tan soldier-melting flame thrower. A paltry 4 multiplayer maps try to add some multiplayer action, with your standard Deathmatch, Team Advance (king of the hill) and Capture the Flag modes, but we’d have preferred Sarge have a buddy and a co-op mode.
So at long last 3DO get a lot of things right in an Army Men game; there’s plenty of oversized real-world settings, a bit of humour and big explosions. Sarge’s War is a highly playable shooter at a budget price (£19.99) - but still 3DO manage to shoot themselves in the foot with an unnecessarily clumsy control system that takes control away from the player rather than assisting them and adding to the gameplay.
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