Review: Advancing past the front lines of portable Army Men games of past history
While I knew 3DO had released numerous games within their franchise based on those little plastic army men of youth, never playing an Army Men title in past, I didn’t quite know what to expect. What I wasn’t prepared for,was how alternately fun and frustrating the latest game in the Army Men series would turn out to be.
Army Men has been around for a long time, in a number of iterations, and while the predictable, it’s picking up in the middle of a long running story, which is somewhat irritating. The first few levels are of the standard “escape” type variety. The character must escape from the tan army’s jail, however it is never really explained how this came about in the first place. While the game includes Vikki and Sarge as playable character, the two essentially have the same storyline, resulting in nothing more than a mere option for the player’s preference of persona.
Visually, Army Men Advance makes impressive progress for the series on portable platforms, with its rich color and design. Yet, a noticeable downside occurs during several “night” operations, as the screen becomes too dark, causing player’s to take more time to complete such levels. While this still may be a Game Boy Advance hardware issue, its result doesn’t help the game in the end. Also, Army Men Advance suffers from unpredictable collision detection. There have been several times that I have been “shot” by a bullet that has missed me, and missed by a bullet that I watched hit me.
The controls are fairly standard for the Game Boy Advance and works quite nicely as the A button fires, B throws grenades and the left shoulder buttons scrolls through weapons. The right shoulder button controls the character’s “strafe” which is a nice effect that helps when facing multiple enemies.
Thankfully, the levels are somewhat short lasting less than a minute or so. Unfortunately, there is no save option, and unless you plan on playing through the entire title in one shot, you’ll be required to use the game’s password feature. With 2 playable characters, 3 difficulty settings, and over 12 levels, well… you do the math; just be sure to carry a pen and paper.
Though Army Men Advance’s sound is pretty decent, Game Boy Advance is capable of higher quality. After finishing off each of the many enemies, they make the same repetitive “ug” sound, which is just one example of the game’s less than stellar audio aspects. After a while, you’ll surely be tempted to turn it down or even off.
