Real Combat Plastic Soldiers, the game’s slogan, was a fairly accurate depiction of the game.
Plot: 6.0/10.0
Graphics: 5.0/10.0
Sound: 6.0/10.0
Enjoyment: 7.0/10.0
Overall: 5.8/10.0
Army Men 3D was developed by 3DO, as the 3D version of their original game. Aiming to release the game on February 28, 1999, 3DO rushed the development of the game, and it’s apparent. Why 3DO was so set on a February release is beyond me, they should have taken the extra few months needed. Making it a May release, getting summer sales, and the game itself would have reached the 8.0+ range. Army Men 3D aimed for many noble goals, and fell short on most. The game offered a wide range of weapons, vehicles, and accessories.
Weapons: rifle, grenades, bazooka, mortar, flamethrower, mines, explosives, and an auto rifle
Vehicles: jeep, halftrack, cargo truck, and tank
Accessories: reconnaissance, minesweeper and medical kits, and packs. Unfortunately, only the rifle, grenades/mortar, and medical kits/packs were helpful. There was no aim on Bazookas, flamethrowers had too close of a range, no use for the mines, explosives were always used for blowing up objective targets, and the auto rifle had shorter range than the rifle. The vehicles were difficult to maneuver, and their combat abilities were weak, so I used them only when the objective required me to. And the normal radar had enough range to make the reconnaissance obsolete. The Minesweeper was annoyingly close ranged, often I was about to step on the mine before it was detected. Even most of the helpful gear creates gameplay faults. The Medical kits/pack show up so often that you NEVER have to worry about health. I think that as long as you snipe and take cover you have more than enough health, which this calls for the elimination of the medical pack, the one take restores full health. Since the game is aiming for fairly realistic combat situations, with light-heartened mood through the use of “Army Men,” that the field full restoration pack is unrealistic. While, the Rifle, or as it should be called Ultimate Weapon, grants the player a weapon that has: Unlimited ammo, the farthest range, and is the starting weapon on every mission.
The AI was disappointingly stupid. The AI was designed to shot anything within certain proximity, regardless if their weapon had enough range to hit, or if there was barriers, like walls or cliffs. So often, enemy turrets were spewing bullets before they could hit, giving away their position. And the best to locate enemy units was to spew bullets in all directions, letting the auto aim inform me of their position, and the enemy units would take no notice.
With all of these rather large, you might ask yourself, so why did it get a 5.8? Army Men 3D did manage to get a few things right, the game stressed the importance of sniping and camouflage. As you have probably read in other reviews, this game you need only to shoot once or twice to kill any unarmored unit, and any armored unit with a few explosives, and you can only take a few hits. Some other reviewers say that this hurts the game because you can easily be killed, well, if you walk on a mine I expect that you should die, or if a mortar shell hits close by you should sustain heavy injury, at least, so the game fulfills that expectation. The missions of the game were a blast; the objectives had vast variety, except they were all solo missions. They ranged from tracking spies to rescuing POW to destroying radio towers to infiltrating enemy bases. And with three different campaigns you got a wide range of different terrain conditions: they were the Desert, the Alpines, and the Bayou. During the game you encountered different enemies: the Blue Army, the Gray Army, and, of course, the Tan Army. Each Army specialized in different strategies for combat. The Blue Army was the army of spies and reconnaissance, numerous references throughout game compared the Blue Army to the French. The Gray Army specialized in guerrilla warfare, making them the most dangerous units in the game. And the Tan army was the major opposition relying on their massive numbers to overtake the enemy forces.
Multiplayer was fun, the game has a map editor, and station up to five troop.
As for as the plot goes I will the game instruction thingy. And you play as Sarge. “I always wondered, Sarge. What makes the other armies so evil? Especially the Tans?”
“It isn't that they're evil, kid, just because they want to conquer everyone else and steal everything they have. I think they just don't know any better. It's a tragic flaw in their character, that's beyond their control. That's why they're better off being dead.”
“The Grays are a bunch of hit-and run guerrillas; when I was little, my dad used to scare me at night by telling me stories about the Grays. You don't have to like the Grays, but you gotta respect them.” “The Blues, on the other hand, are stinkin' cowards! They make better sneaks than they do soldiers. They're more likely to ambush you then shoot you in open combat. The Tans put up with the Blues because they can use them as couriers, saboteurs, and spies.” “They’re so many of, Sarge. Their three armies against our one. We don’t stand a chance, Sarge! We’re as good as dead! Dead, I tell you!”
“They aren’t supermen, kid. They aren’t even unbreakable. They melt just like everyone else. Remember, they don’t cooperate with each other, at least not for long. It isn’t us against them; it’s us against them against them against them. There’s more to it than I told you, kid. We’re on this mission to look for something- something powerful. No one knows what exactly it is. It’s some powerful mumbo-jumbo, that’s all I really know; and we can’t let the Tans get to it first. There’s no telling what they’d do.”
Other reviewers complained about the graphics being particularly poor, well, remember this was the same year Final Fantasy VIII came out, and it was considered one of the best games graphically. There were only two significant differences between their graphics quality. In Army Men 3D when you look farther out at the horizon the images were foggy, well, in real life your vision half a mile away isn’t as good as five feet in front of you. While it was unintentionally is heightened the sense of realism in the game. The other major flaw was not mentioned by other reviewers, but atlas is still a problem, your main enemy in the game is the Tan Army, so knowing your graphics aren’t that good, why would you choose the Desert as a sitting? It is sort of hard to notice a Tan soldier over the tan ground; I wound up having to rely extensively on the radar, and the auto aim.
The sound effects of the game were good. While the music was based off of some WWII propaganda commercial, which was fine, and helped the game, but, unfortunately, they played the same couple of songs all the time, so there wasn’t any variety.
As I mentioned before, despite all the faults of the game, the variety of missions, terrain, and enemies overall made the game fairly fun. And for its time, it was one of a few games that achieved a decent shooter, so I think it deserves I score I gave it, a 5.8/10.0.
-Lucavi_Zalera