I went into Portal Runner on the PlayStation 2 with extremely low expectations. I found the Game Boy Color game to be dreadful, and while I know a PS2 game and GBC game are, by default, a far cry from one another, I figured “If the Game Boy Color game screws up what should be a winning formula for me - platforming - then what will this screw up?” Fortunately, though, what I got was the opposite of what I expected. It’s not the best game in the series or anything, but it’s genuinely fun and significantly better than I expected it to be. The story takes place immediately following the events of Sarge’s Heroes 2. General Plastro is in a Green jail, the Tan army is behaving (for the moment; you can never trust plastic Nazis), and Bridget Blue is in hiding somewhere. She’s still obsessing over Sergeant Hawk, though, with a creepy “I’ll force you to love me” stalker vibe going on. She devises a plan to get what she wants; she sends an anonymous message to Green Plastic News ace reporter Vikki Grimm, Hawk’s girlfriend and Colonel Grimm’s daughter, telling her that “the story of your career” awaited her at a not-at-all ominous location in the middle of nowhere. Having literal plastic for a brain, Vikki goes, and of course, she’s kidnapped. This naturally lures out Sergeant Hawk where he, too, is kidnapped. Vikki is exiled to a different world, one she’s never seen before. This isn’t the plastic world or the real world; this is a world of dinosaurs. She’s trapped as the portal that brought her there was destroyed, but she’s not alone; she befriends a lion she names Leo (how original). Together, they search for a portal home. This adventure ends up taking them through three different worlds. Unlike the other Army Men games on PlayStation platforms, this isn’t a strict third person shooter. You do shoot - Vikki has a bow - but it’s an adventure platformer first and foremost. Yeah, there was a good bit of platforming in Sarge’s Heroes, but nothing like this. In those games, it was a feature that livened things up between bouts of combat; here, it’s the focus whereas combat is the feature that livens things up. Whereas the platforming in Sarge’s Heroes felt pretty clunky, it’s thankfully pretty smooth here. It’s no Crash Bandicoot or Mario, but it’s good for a series that epitomizes mediocrity. The shooting is pretty solid too; there’s a very strong auto aim that, while it struggles a little with the Y axis aiming, makes X axis aiming something you barely have to do; shoot anywhere in a 45 degree arc, and you’ll probably hit it. That’s not to say there’s no manual aiming; there is, and you’ll have to use it now and then both for puzzles and to hit distant enemies. It’s just not how most of your shooting will be done as was the case in Sarge’s Heroes. Speaking of the puzzles, they’re not bad. They’re pretty rudimentary - no Resident Evil puzzles here - but they are, for the most part, interesting enough that I didn’t get bored with them. The visuals are what most impressed me. That’s not to say that it’s a visually stunning game, but it is an Army Men game even if the title doesn’t suggest that, so I expected the usual sub-par visuals. What I got was exactly what I’d expect from a mid budget PS2 game. It definitely looks better than Sarge’s Heroes 2 and Air Attack 2, and I thought it looked on par with or slightly better than Green Rogue. The sound design, while lacking the rad soundtrack of Sarge’s Heroes and Sarge’s Heroes 2, is solid. The music is good even if not great, and I don’t have much complaint with the sound. I’m fairly certain Jim Cummings still voiced Sergeant Hawk, but I can’t find anything other than “Additional Voices” for his credits for Portal Runner online, so I can’t be sure. Hawk’s voice sounded a little different to my ears, but I don’t know if that’s actually because it was a different voice actor or just something weird with his lines in the game’s sound. The difficulty modes were also interesting to me. Army Men games, especially the World War games, have usually been quite difficult towards the end of the game. Maybe 3DO took that feedback on prior games into account because in addition to the usual Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty options, there was also an option called Dream which is essentially the below-easy difficulty that usually gets called “Story” these days. It’s stupidly easy on that setting, but if you’re bad at the game and just want to experience the story and the environments, it’s there for you. As the patron saint of Bitch Mode, I approve of this setting’s inclusion. I’m a little surprised that Portal Runner only came to PlayStation 2 (I’m not counting the handheld version; it’s a totally different game). Every other game non-World War game was on at least one other platform, and a lot of folks have a mental connection between Nintendo and Army Men with Sarge’s Heroes and Sarge’s Heroes 2. Since Air Attack 2 (albeit with a different title), Sarge’s War, and RTS were all on GameCube, and Major Malfunction was on Xbox (exclusively on Xbox if you’re in North America), it just seems an odd choice to keep Portal Runner locked to the PlayStation 2. Green Rogue was also only on Sony hardware, but it was on PS1 as well as PS2, and Portal Runner released in 2001; it was a year into the PS2’s life, sure, but there were still some games being released for PS1. Regardless, though, it’s a much better game than I expected. It’s not perfect, and the story is a little underwhelming since the main enemies you fight are dinosaurs, knights, and little green men instead of Tan soldiers, but it’s still a decent Army Men gaiden sort of story. Since it doesn’t have “Army Men” in the title - something that will never not irk me - obsessive compulsive fans don’t need to grab this to put it next to the other Army Men games on your PS2 shelf, but I do think it’s definitely worth a playthrough if you’re a fan of the series. I kind of regret waiting so long to actually play this now; this is the only game in the series that wasn’t a replay for the review. If you haven’t played this, don’t deprive yourself. You won’t be wondering why it didn’t win any Game of the Year awards, but it’s definitely not a waste of time. My Rating - B |
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
May 2024
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