Army Men RTS

RTS is the one Army Men game released on PC that I never played until its release on GOG. I always assumed this would be the best one in the series, having been developed by Pandemic. Alas: having finished the campaign now I must say that this is one of the worst RTS games I've ever finished. First off: content-wise the game does not do the series justice. There's familiar characters and some dialogue in the style of other later Army Men games (e.g. Sarge's Heroes) but neither did the game make me laugh much nor did the developers use the setting for interesting stuff that other RTS titles can't do. It's just another Command & Conquer clone with some extra humour. The only meaningful difference is that all units leave behind puddles of plastic which can be harvested. And the campaign itself is just unimaginative. The real problem is that the game is a barely functional RTS. The unit behaviour is dreadful, with units almost never doing what they are supposed to, piling up on each other and sometimes downright refusing to execute a command. Orders that should take a few seconds to execute may take up to twenty and no amount of microing will help - as a matter of fact microing barely works due to these problems. There's also serious UI problems like only four numbered groups or the most useless minimap I've ever seen in an RTS. Also the units and buildings just aren't interesting. The developers failed to introduce unit types you haven't seen in the series before, there's basically only one faction that doesn't play very well and doesn't allow interesting tactics. A full base is set up in a matter of two or three minutes (minus some building upgrades). So it's really just a very dull and often frustrating RTS. Can't recommend it. For the record: I encountered no technical problems.

This is a very old but very fascinated little game, that in its simplicity, nice lightweight humour and colorful (but mind, very old school) 3D visuals, could constitute an excellent entry point into RTS games. Few units but quite specialized, very simple base building. It's simple, but it a throwback to a good golden time, and it while it feels the aging, it didn't age as bad as one might have thought.

For the first little while, the Army Men games were your typical war games: yeah, you’re a plastic army man, but other than being one color and breaking like, well, plastic toys, that was about it in difference. It really started picking up when Sarge became the incarnation he is in this game. Out of all the Army Men games, this is the only one that gave me the sense that I was a little plastic toy. Blades of grass might as well be towering trees, bugs can be a threat, and even other toys have become weaponized. It really feel like little armies fighting for control of a single house. Sometimes, the missions are a little unforgiving. I had a hard time beating some levels the first time through, but finish a game before cheating. It’s possible, don’t worry! But even after I beat the game and cheated, it shocked me how long some levels took. I’d send 25 helicopters to attack a target, and sometimes I’d lose all of them before getting through the defenses. Which is a testament to the strategy you need to play this game. It’s very hard to win on brute force alone. Strategy is more the way to go. Another problem is that if a battle drags on for too long, you will run out of resources. Outside of cheat codes, if there’s no more resources to mine, you can only get more from killing enemies and, even then, you only get some plastic back, and nothing else. It looks like enemy can run out, but I either lost or restarted before figuring it out for sure. And then there are a few levels that aren’t RTS levels at all, but you leading a squad to do something, often escaping. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t as fun or interesting as the other levels.

This game has a very intuitive system for unit and building management to make it easy for beginners. There is also only a couple different resources to focus on gathering to keep it simple. If you are expecting the sort of depth found in Age of Empires or Rise of Nations, you might be disappointed. This is a pretty casual RTS, but it's still quite fun especially considering the sale price. This game does have some quirks. While using squads to call up a group of units is nice, the actual movement of units through the world is annoying sometimes. Units bunch up and have difficulty getting past eachother. Each unit stops frequently to give themselves leading room for the unit in front of them. The armies travel in lines rather than formations which exacerbate this issue. The infantry tend to lead the march and they get mowed down if they encounter machine guns, snipers, or half-tracks. Direct3D maximum resolution is 1280x720 for 16:9 monitors and 1280x1024 overall. Forcing 8x supersampling on 1280x720 through the video driver looks pretty nice even on my 4K monitor with more saturated colors and no jaggies, especially if you get the unofficial high-res texture pack. Glide wrappers do allow for higher resolutions, but I didn't find a significant improvement with them.

Army Men RTS is exactly as described by it's title, a real-time strategy game based in the Army Men universe. Whether you are a fan of the Army Men series or a fan of RTS type games, you will find a good time waiting for you. The kid in you will find the setting of the game(a normal house) charming and the story funny. The adult in you will appreciate the attention to detail taken by the devs in creating a world that ropes you in and doesn't let go unless you need to eat or hit the bathroom(a real one, not the one in the game). In short, this is a wonderfully fun game that gets everything right and ticks all the boxes. Additionally, it runs perfectly on modern systems and Windows 10(as of the date of this writing). Buy with confidence!