Army Men: RTS

"I love Army Men; This is the worst RTS I have ever played"

I have tried very, very hard to like this, because I pride myself on being able to see the gold in the Army Men games everyone else dismisses out of hand. There's no depth to the game as an RTS, but I'm also a big fan of RTS games without real depth. This would be one of those games where you just tell the units where to go and they do it, and you don't have to use spellcasters or make you dragoons dance or anything like that. The only trouble is that you can't do that with this game, because it's got enough little annoying things to ruin the controls and thus the whole game.

Graphics - 4/10
Yeah, they're 3-d, and they're army men, so you can't ask for much more than green and tan. In fact you can ask for that and you won't get it. When you tell units to walk (among other things which we'll get into later on) they'll sometimes stop mid-step and hop along on one foot for a few steps. This isn't really so bad. All of the units look exactly the same at first, second and sometimes third glance. Even this is tolerable compared to the times you try to see what's going on and you can't because it's going on under a table or a chair or a car. Yes, it's true; this is the one and only RTS with FAULTY CAMERA ANGLES.

Sound - 3/10
People tend to complain about the little ''affirmative'' things your units say. I have never had a problem with them. Until now. Not only could they not get the same voice actors from other Army Men games so as not to confuse you at first, but they found the man with the most annoying voice on the planet to play Hoover the minesweeper who has previously been lovable. And it seems like he's part of every mission. I finally gave up and looked for the option to turn the voices off, which every RTS for the last five years has had. Except this one. The music is nice, but doesn't make sense. Your little green soldiers will be being slaughtered to a jaunty little tune and you'll be sitting waiting for them to heal to a fast-paced battle song. It's rather like listening to Enya with World War I going on in the background but without the sense that the irony was intended.

Controls - 0/10
Dismal. At first it just seems like your units move slowly, but then you notice that they're just constantly getting in each other's way. Two will stop as if to say ''Go ahead,'' to the other then go and run into each other, then stop again and so on until you manually move one out of the way or some act of God pushes the two apart. And speaking of moving them out of the way, they somehow have reaction times slower than a sloth covered in molasses. So they'll keep going one way for a while before they turn to go the way you ordered them to.

'So what?' you might be thinking. 'I can just hotkey several groups of units and tell them to move in a flanking manner.' No you can't, because you can only hotkey *four* groups. Four. I don't know who's idea that was, but it was just brilliant if you ask the inhabitants of Mo-ron 7 out in the Dumbass galaxy.

Gameplay - 5/10
Ignoring the moronic AI and pathfinding, the game is a little fun. Like I said, there is no gameplay depth. You just point and they say ''sure'' a few minutes later, so if that appeals to you, buy Red Alert 2, because it does that style substantially better.

Replay Value - 2/10
This game doesn't have a ''random map'' feature. Why the *hell* doesn't it have a ''random map'' feature? Random Map being the Age of Kings term for a game where you just play against an AI opponent, which I can't think of a better substitute for. There's an online multiplayer option, but I don't even want to imagine the speed of the game with it's horrible pathfinding *and* lag.

Buy?
Maybe. It's definitely worth the $10 it'll be in a few months, because as horrible as the game is, it's good for a few larfs. And there is something satisfying about overcoming the dismal controls and horribly mismatched unit strengths (Defensive structures are much, much too good, especially in a game with no clearly defined 'siege') to win the mission and be told that you didn't kill all the roaches so you must do it again if you want to unlock some kind of bonus.

Note that despite this, it's still the worst RTS game I have ever played or heard of. This is coming from someone who played Blood and Steel for the first time in 1996, years after the heyday I assume it must have had to be put on a collection CD. If you're buying this because you want a worthwhile game, don't buy it. If you're buying it because it's $10 and a way to kill a good amount of time, go for it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/03, Updated 03/08/03