Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2

"Better than the first!"

You're probably thinking I'm crazy enough for saying that this is a good game, never mind better than the first one. I really feel that Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 is better than its prequel, and if you think different, I hope my review can convince you otherwise.

STORY:
General Plastro remains frozen (or as they call it in the game, "plastered") after spending too much time in the real world, until a beautiful blue spy named Bridgette Bleu comes to restore him with a mysterious serum that can revive any soldier frozen in the real world. Soon, Plastro creates an army made up of toys from the real world, like battery powered robots (with heavy machine guns I might add), plastic tanks and more. You play as Sarge, using your weapons and your fellow Bravo Company Members to bring down General Plastro once and for all.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10
The gameplay is just about the same as before, except with a few minor improvements. The controls are less clunky and you can interact with Bravo Company members. You can still crawl on the ground, or roll over to dodge fire. They have also added Boot Camp to warm you up to the game, and it does a pretty good job at it. The variety of guns makes navigating the levels pretty fun, and wondering how you can use them to take down giant toys makes having them even more fun. Going through the levels is usually pretty straight forward, although sometimes they make annoying situations where you have to make Sarge jump a long distance and can only be done if you make him jump at just the right moment, otherwise making him plummet to the ground and possibly at a loss for health. In general, the gameplay beats the prequel in just a few areas, but enough to make it a more fun game.

GRAPHICS: 8/10
The graphics really haven't made any improvements since the first Sarge's Heroes game. The characters still look pretty good, as do the backgrounds. For it's time period, just about everything looks as real as it can get, which makes the game pretty nice to look at. Well done here.

SOUND: 7/10
Barely an improvement from last time, but still an improvement. There is more background tracks, during the levels and during the cinematics between the levels. The grunting noises continue, as do they painful moans after a soldier gets shot. Vicky can now say things like "Don't touch!" or "Take that!", which can somewhat liven up the levels. There are also some new sound effects, but they're really nothing special. Like I said, not a major improvement from the last game, but it's an improvement.

LENGTH: 7/10
In this game, the levels are shorter and easier. This means that the game is shorter than the first one. This game will probably keep you occupied for a shorter amount of time than it's prequel, so if you're looking for a long and hard game, you're more likely to be disappointed by this game.

MUTLIPLAYER: 8/10
The multiplayer is no different than it was in the first game, except with different levels and maybe some new weapons. You can also choose from being one of four colors (green, tan, gray and blue) and you can choose a character to be that color, so you could make Sarge blue if you wanted to. The multiplayer is nothing to brag about, but it does okay.

REPLAYABILITY: 5/10
The only reason you would probably want to play this game again is either because you had a lot of fun playing it, or you might want to play it again in case you missed something. Other than that, you'll probably want to put it down after you beat it.

Total Score: 45/60
Averaged Score: 7.5 (rounds up to 8)

Buy or Rent?
If you can even rent this game anymore (which you probably can, although I don't rent games, so I don't know) than that's what I would recommend. It will probably take you no more than a week to finish it, so that's probably the better option. Although, this game does sell for less than $15 now, so if that's cheaper than renting it, then buy it. In short, whatever's cheaper.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/05