Army Men is one of my all-time favorite series. It’s definitely a guilty pleasure series that I love for nostalgia more than anything else, but it was a huge part of my childhood. Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes and Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 on N64 and Army Men II and Army Men: Toys in Space on PC were among my favorite games growing up. That’s why I decided to do a playthrough of every handheld game in the Army Men series several years back. I’ve decided to do the same with the console games for 2024. As I have previously played through and reviewed Army Men 3D on Playstation, I decided to start with the Playstation exclusive Army Men: World War. Technically, World War is also on PC, but they are completely different games. As far as narrative goes, it’s hard to place World War in the larger Army Men universe. Assuming you take it as a single cohesive universe at all. I, personally, place the World War games at the very beginning of the series before Army Men 3D (as well as Army Men and Army Men II on PC). The game’s cut scenes seem to imply that open military conflict between Tan and Green and its allies is a relatively recent thing. Between that and the lack of portals to our world, it seems pretty clear to me that this game takes place before the events of Army Men and Army Men II. As for the game’s narrative, it’s pretty bare bones. You play as a soldier - it may or may not be “Sarge” from the original PC games - as you fight your way through fairly random missions in three campaigns. Each of these campaigns symbolize the three main fronts of World War II - the Pacific theater, the Eastern European theater, and the Western European theater. That said, despite the allusions to World War II in the game’s story, setting, and theme, the characters stay true to the “source material” plastic toys that many of us played with as children with M16s and attack helicopters. The missions feature a lot of objective variety. Sometimes you have to eliminate all of the Tan soldiers in an area, sometimes you have to break POWs out of a Tan prison camp, sometimes you have to hold off waves of Tan attacks to keep control of an area. The game may be rough by today’s standards, but for an early 3D game on the original Playstation, it’s actually pretty impressive and offers a lot of depth of gameplay. The game is pretty short and beatable in a few hours, but it definitely gets challenging. The challenge isn’t exactly a smooth scale - rather, it’s like a mountain range with spikes followed by a couple of easy missions that lead up to another spike - but as you play through and get a feel for the controls, aiming, and how the rudimentary AI behaves, you quickly become acclimated to the game’s mid 90s jank, jank which I personally consider part of its charm. There is one level where you man a cannon turret on a train that you are almost guaranteed to fail your first time through as there’s a train collision you have to avoid that gives you almost no warning, and that’s a really cheap death that is sure to frustrate you, but that’s the only part I can remember that essentially requires dying to learn that it’s there. The game isn’t exactly beautiful, but most Playstation games are pretty ugly by today’s standards, and for an early 3D game on a console not known for its hardware prowess, it features some impressively detailed environments. Again, you have to take it in the context of a nearly 30 year old game, but taken with that perspective in mind, there’s a surprising amount to appreciate for a game in a series known for mediocrity and mid-budget releases. The sound design is a similar bag. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind, but the sound effects are decent. The music, likewise, doesn’t hold a candle to classic soundtracks of the era like Final Fantasy VII and Super Mario 64, but it’s solid and does the job well. It doesn’t have any earworms that get stuck in your head, but you won’t be left questioning why the game sounds the way that it does. Army Men: World War has a lot of the same charms as well as a lot of the same drawbacks as Army Men 3D. It suffers from the typical early 3D visual problems, but it does somewhat make up for that with its surprisingly detailed environments. The mission variety is surprisingly solid and definitely outperforms Army Men 3D in that regard. The controls, however, are just as janky, and the story is bare bones and virtually non-existent aside from some occasional cutscenes and newspaper headlines that display between missions. In that regard, it falls short of Army Men 3D. Overall, it averages out to being a good companion to Army Men 3D that I don’t consider better or worse when taken as a whole package. If you enjoyed Army Men 3D, you’ll enjoy Army Men: World War. It’s not nearly as cartoony or polished as the more popular Sarge’s Heroes games, but it does provide a somewhat grittier plastic war that may be more appealing to some. My Rating - CAlso available on PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC Back in the days of my youth before we got obsessed with killing brown people in desert countries to steal their oil, Call of Duty was about two things - explosions and Nazi killing. I’m honestly not sure why this has the “Call of Duty 2” title because it’s not Call of Duty 2. Call of Duty 2 released on Xbox 360 and Windows in November 2005; Call of Duty 2: Big Red One released on Xbox, Gamecube, Playstation 2, and PC in October 2005. This isn’t just a last gen release to make it cross gen at the 360’s launch; this is a totally different game. Despite being a side game, it’s every bit the equal of Call of Duty 2. Big Red One follows the US Army 1st Infantry Division nicknamed “Big Red One” due to the large red 1 on their emblem. Unlike most Call of Duty games, you spend the vast majority of the game playing as one man, Roland Roger. There are a couple levels where you play as a different character in the US Army Air Corps running support missions, but you spend almost the whole game playing as a foot soldier. You play through most of the big moments America’s involvement in Europe - the North African campaign, the invasion of Sicily, Operation Overlord, and the liberation of France and push into Germany. It does focus exclusively on the European front, so if you’re hoping to fight the Japanese, you’ll be disappointed. That does mean, however, you’re looking at like eight hours of non-stop Nazi killing, and that’s always a good thing. Graphically, the game is pretty impressive for 6th generation hardware. I haven’t personally played the PS2 version, but I’ve played the Xbox and Gamecube versions, and I’ve looked at a lot of visual comparisons. All three consoles look pretty similar, but Xbox is definitely the most visually impressive version, and that makes considering that the Xbox was by far the strongest of the four 6th generation consoles (RIP Dreamcast). I would rank Gamecube as the second best looking version, but I could see some argument between Gamecube and PS2. PS2’s visuals are sharper than Gamecube’s, but the Gamecube version seems to use some anti-aliasing that does give the game a slightly smudged look but hides the intense stair stepping and jagged textures seen on the PS2. At the end of the day, Gamecube vs PS2 is largely a personal preference, but I definitively rank Gamecube above PS2. Presentation and sound design are top notch in Big Red One and absolutely the equal of the mainline games. Between most chapters, you have some Military Channel clips showing some of the actual World War II footage. I love this for two reasons. First and foremost, these clips make the game an actually pretty solid history lesson. As one who teaches high school history for a living, that’s a huge plus for me. The other advantage, though, is that it gives some narrative context to the battles you’re playing through. It gives a nice, short break between big levels, and I’m a fan of the mental breaks in games that cut scenes provide. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is a fantastic World War II experience. It may not be as nostalgic for most gamers as Call of Duty: World at War is, and it may not be as visually impressive as Call of Duty: WWII, but it is absolutely a great time. If you’re a fan of first person shooters and World War II games, then you definitely need to play this any way that you can. If you aren’t a fan of World War II games, then I’m going to assume you’re a Nazi sympathizer. If you don’t play this game, you love Nazis. I don’t make the rules. My Rating - A |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
April 2024
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