Team Buddies

"A nice RTS with a splash of color."

I rented this game the other day and was excited to finally get ahold of this game. I had read a preview of the game in Game Informer Magazine about a month or two ago, and it looked pretty neat.

-Gameplay-

The gameplay in this game is sort of, lacking. The small amount of weapons available at the beginning of the game almost never changes. So the only thing that the developers threw in to mix it up were the various odd level goals. That range from righting tipped over garbage cans to finding your stolen bike. The gameplay is very nice nonetheless. What this game was really made for was the Multiplayer aspect, which is the only reason you will play the 1 player game. As you go through the one player game you unlock new modes and levels for multiplayer that are very cool. There is things like a fight for Territory to an all out slaughterfest with your cute little buddies. The AI in this game is awesome. You control one of four buddies on your team that you can switch between, so when you are not using the other 3 buddies the ''Artificial Incompetence'' takes over, or so the developer calls it. It is anything but incompetent though, I've gotten wooped one too many times now by the great enemy AI to be insulting it.

-Story-

This game has a great story. It's like a standard puzzle game story. You are stuck doing a very odd task over and over, but you never know why. You know that different colors of buddies are at war, but you just don't know why. It's sort of like Adam and Eve where the buddies are real innocent until crates start falling from the sky with weapons in them. OH! NO!, not the crates, please lord no, not crates, eheh. Anyway, the game has a cool story, not as good as other RTS's but cool nonetheless.

-Graphics & Sound-

The graphics in this game are nice. They are cartoonish but they are done very well, you can clearly see your buddies on the landscape and the landscapes are dotted with trees and water and the like very nicely. The sound in the game could use some work as it is very cartoonish, almost too cartoonish and happy to be in a game where heartless little pill shaped bastards try to kill each other, eheh.

-Replayability-

If you have a brother or sister or two, then this game will spend plenty of time in the playstation. If you have the occasional friend over to play vids, then this game will spend time in the playstation when your friends are over because of the deathmatch aspect. You can also deathmatch against the CPU on your own, alone, and lonely, like me. The multiplayer games give the game all the replayability it needs. Once you beat the 1 player, you won't wanna go back and beat it again.

-Bottom Line-

This game is very cool. Any RTS fan should run out and buy it immediately. This game however misses it's targeted audience by about 7 years. The gameplay is too complicated for smaller children to understand but older, say around 12 and up will love this game. I've already bought this game, it's being shipped to me as we speak.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/05/00, Updated 11/05/00