|
|
Army Men: Sarge's Heroes
|
Score: 40%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: 3DO
Developer: 3DO
Media: Cart/1
Players: 1
Genre: Action
|
|
|
|
Graphics & Sound:
The graphics on Sarge's Heroes were very well done. Of course, don't expect a lot of color in the levels where you are running around camps and such in 'Their World'. You'll just find your basic shades of green and tan. However, on the 'Our World' levels, everything is bright, shiny and full of visual puns. The characters (in the actual gameplay as well as the FMV's) are so shiny, their bodies reflect their surroundings. I was quite impressed with the overall look of the game, as well as the sound effects. The voice acting was just as you'd expect it to be - totally cheesy, as has always been the case with the Army Men series. They were going for campy here and accomplished it well. Visual and sound effects creates a definite 'toy' feel, but the explosions which will be going on all around you feel very true to life.
|
|
|
Gameplay:
Gameplay is good. It's a 3rd person shooter/action/adventure where you play as Sarge, the fearless leader of the Green Army. You'll be given a number of missions, some quite hard, others not so tough. I found this game to be a lot of fun, and a number of times, found myself really immersed into the plotline. (Especially the time I accidentally threw a grenade into the area where my 'mission objective' was being held hostage. Oops.) There are a number of weapons at your disposal, some designed to specifically help you get through the areas. Take for example, the mine sweep or the long range rifle with the scope, very useful for picking off those snipers waiting for you down the road. In general, I really enjoyed the game. There were a few control issues that I'll address in Game Mechanics, but those were the only things that detracted from the overall enjoyment of Sarge's Heroes.
|
|
|
Difficulty:
The missions themselves had a decent amount of difficulty. You won't run through this game and beat it in a day or two. Not by a longshot. But this is a good thing. The difficulty comes in getting Sarge to do what you want him to do. Sometimes it just seemed that he had a mind of his own, and that no matter how hard I wanted him to go one way, dammit, he was going the other. This made the game much more difficult, as I'd find myself smack dab in front of the enemy, with him blasting away into my chest. What did Sarge do? Run, you say? Fire back? How about run straight into them or fire at some other guy. Argh! So that's where the major difficulty comes in.
|
|
|
Game Mechanics:
Hmm. The control in Sarge's Heroes left a lot to be desired. As mentioned earlier, it is, at times, very difficult to control Sarge. I just found the response time to be very slow and sometimes non-existent. Now, this was not the case all the time, but it seemed to occur most during the heat of battle (which is bad). Also, I found the auto-aim to be very random. Sometimes it would work and others, not at all. Again, it seemed that when some tan guy was right in my face, shooting away, my auto-aim would fail. Extremely frustrating. Often it was better to turn tail and run. Basically, if you can get over the control issues (and that's a big thing to get over) and the sporadic auto-aim, the game is really a blast. Great plotline, interesting and varied missions, and you get to blow stuff up everywhere you go. If this game wasn't so damn much fun, it would have scored lower, but if you like the Army Men series as a whole, you'll probably want to pick this one up. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to rent it.
|
|
|
-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
