A Review: Army Men: Sarge's Heroes II, N64 2000
Army Men: Sarge's Heroes II is the tenth game in the Army Men series and a direct sequel to Sarge's Heroes, which was released in 1999. Developed and released by the 3DO Company, the game was also ported to and made available for the Playstation One, Playstation Two, and Gameboy Color. Unlike the first game, this one featured a more lighthearted storyline.
I found this game to be a big disappointment when compared to the first, with perhaps an exception made for the slightly less serious plot. The gameplay was rough, and I found it to be lacking in comparison to the original. Controls were again sluggish, and the same issue with having to turn Sarge's whole body to aim remained unchanged. There was no flexibility to Sarge's body at all, and it really annoyed me as the levels were much more cluttered than in the first game, which made overrunning into an enemy a major problem. The computer was able to hit you from further away than you could hit them, and explosives had far too large an area of effect. Using the bazooka or a grenade was as much a hazard to the player as it was to the enemy, and it really annoyed me to have to use them. Some levels required the use of explosive weapons to progress, and I found the constant trouble with these weapons to be very stressful at times. The camera was almost unchanged from the original and suffered the same problems. Looking around corners caused glitches and stuttering, and it would sometimes get locked between two objects and wouldn't move at all. I even once managed to 'lose' the camera when it got hung up on top of one of the buildings on one level; it was so damn frustrating to try and use that it effected my experience of this game quite negatively. I found Vikki to be an unnecessary and irritating addition to the game, and the rescue and escort missions really pissed me off. It felt like a cheap way to flesh the game out, but instead became something that I found wholly irritating and honestly disliked more than anything else. The rest of the plot made little sense and was generic at best, with some of the missions being absolutely pointless, in my opinion. Let alone the weird, nonsensical way that the story ended up going towards the end of this game, I was left confused and lost. The various weapons served almost no purpose, as the basic rifle could do pretty much everything better than they could and didn't require searching around for ammo drops. The auto-aim was worse this time around and would sometimes aim just to the side of an enemy before snapping onto them correctly, wasting several shots that could mean the difference between life and death. The audio suffered some strange breaks at times, and I didn't think that the music matched the gameplay at all. The difficulty was lower with this game too, with a complete playthrough taking me barely five hours. This game was just plain crap when compared to the first one, at least in my opinion.
Visuals are mostly unchanged, and it would seem that almost everything is just reused assets from the first game with a higher pixel count and slightly improved resolution. I have absolutely no idea why Vikki was coloured like a real person and not like the rest of the cast. She stood out in an ugly way, and the only reason that I could think of for this decision was that she was just some cheap 'fan service' or an easy poster girl for the game. I will say that I liked the portals and thought that the swirling vortices looked pretty cool. I didn't like the vehicles, though, and thought that they were too basic and poorly detailed when compared to the previous game. The backgrounds were again either low-resolution, stretched static images, or basic block colours. Though the 'real world' locations had more effort put into them and actually looked pretty good. Sarge's model seemed to look better, but I found that the enemy soldiers looked pretty crappy in comparison. They were generally of lower quality, in my opinion, and didn't stand up well when compared to Sarge or his team. Interactibles and other objects looked to be of lower quality too. It was like the development team had reused the old game assets but seemed to drop the quality somehow, like they were copied over using a lower pixel count or some form of software that reduced the overall quality.
It was a shame, as I went into this game expecting much more than what I got, which was a big slap in the face and a feeling of disappointment. Still, I will give it to this game that it is indeed an easy and 'mindless' way to spend a few hours, as one critic put it, which must count for something.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I found this game to be a big disappointment when compared to the first, with perhaps an exception made for the slightly less serious plot. The gameplay was rough, and I found it to be lacking in comparison to the original. Controls were again sluggish, and the same issue with having to turn Sarge's whole body to aim remained unchanged. There was no flexibility to Sarge's body at all, and it really annoyed me as the levels were much more cluttered than in the first game, which made overrunning into an enemy a major problem. The computer was able to hit you from further away than you could hit them, and explosives had far too large an area of effect. Using the bazooka or a grenade was as much a hazard to the player as it was to the enemy, and it really annoyed me to have to use them. Some levels required the use of explosive weapons to progress, and I found the constant trouble with these weapons to be very stressful at times. The camera was almost unchanged from the original and suffered the same problems. Looking around corners caused glitches and stuttering, and it would sometimes get locked between two objects and wouldn't move at all. I even once managed to 'lose' the camera when it got hung up on top of one of the buildings on one level; it was so damn frustrating to try and use that it effected my experience of this game quite negatively. I found Vikki to be an unnecessary and irritating addition to the game, and the rescue and escort missions really pissed me off. It felt like a cheap way to flesh the game out, but instead became something that I found wholly irritating and honestly disliked more than anything else. The rest of the plot made little sense and was generic at best, with some of the missions being absolutely pointless, in my opinion. Let alone the weird, nonsensical way that the story ended up going towards the end of this game, I was left confused and lost. The various weapons served almost no purpose, as the basic rifle could do pretty much everything better than they could and didn't require searching around for ammo drops. The auto-aim was worse this time around and would sometimes aim just to the side of an enemy before snapping onto them correctly, wasting several shots that could mean the difference between life and death. The audio suffered some strange breaks at times, and I didn't think that the music matched the gameplay at all. The difficulty was lower with this game too, with a complete playthrough taking me barely five hours. This game was just plain crap when compared to the first one, at least in my opinion.
Visuals are mostly unchanged, and it would seem that almost everything is just reused assets from the first game with a higher pixel count and slightly improved resolution. I have absolutely no idea why Vikki was coloured like a real person and not like the rest of the cast. She stood out in an ugly way, and the only reason that I could think of for this decision was that she was just some cheap 'fan service' or an easy poster girl for the game. I will say that I liked the portals and thought that the swirling vortices looked pretty cool. I didn't like the vehicles, though, and thought that they were too basic and poorly detailed when compared to the previous game. The backgrounds were again either low-resolution, stretched static images, or basic block colours. Though the 'real world' locations had more effort put into them and actually looked pretty good. Sarge's model seemed to look better, but I found that the enemy soldiers looked pretty crappy in comparison. They were generally of lower quality, in my opinion, and didn't stand up well when compared to Sarge or his team. Interactibles and other objects looked to be of lower quality too. It was like the development team had reused the old game assets but seemed to drop the quality somehow, like they were copied over using a lower pixel count or some form of software that reduced the overall quality.
It was a shame, as I went into this game expecting much more than what I got, which was a big slap in the face and a feeling of disappointment. Still, I will give it to this game that it is indeed an easy and 'mindless' way to spend a few hours, as one critic put it, which must count for something.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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