Army Men: Sarge's Heroes

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Army Men: Sarge's Heroes
Developer(s)The 3DO Company[a]
Publisher(s)The 3DO Company[b]
Designer(s)Trip Hawkins
Programmer(s)
  • Dan Geisler
  • Joel Dinolt
  • John Renstrom
Artist(s)
  • Nina Stanley
  • Mike Kennedy
  • Don Seegmiller
Writer(s)Sharon Wong
SeriesArmy Men: Sarge's Heroes
Platform(s)Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows
ReleaseNintendo 64
  • NA: September 28, 1999
  • EU: April 14, 2000
PlayStation
  • NA: February 23, 2000[1]
  • EU: August 17, 2000
Dreamcast
  • NA: October 31, 2000[2]
  • EU: November 17, 2000
Windows
  • NA: 2000
  • EU: December 15, 2000
Genre(s)Third-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes is a third-person shooter video game and the fourth entry in The 3DO Company's Army Men series (1998–2003), which are based on the green plastic figures of the same name. Its Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions were developed and published by The 3DO Company. The port for the Dreamcast was developed by Saffire and published by Midway, while another for Microsoft Windows was published by GT Interactive. Excluding the 1999 North American release for the Nintendo 64 version, the game was released in 2000.

The primary single-player mode depicts the Green Army, led by Colonel Grimm, fighting against General Plastro's Tan Army, which have found portals to Our World (the human world) that contain useful weapons when fighting in Their World (the world where the plastic soldiers reside). In 3D battlefields of both worlds, the player acts as plastic soldiers, either the titular Sargent Hawk or one of five members of a group of the army's best troops he leads, the Bravo Company, completing a variety of missions, such as rescues, capturing blue spies, killing enemies and destroying portals. In the game's multi-player modes, tan, gray or blue soldiers are options for playable characters. The game features variations of 13 weapons.

Part of a series that covered multiple genres, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was set by The 3DO Company's founder Trip Hawkins and creative director Michael Mendheim to be a character-focused action-adventure game a la Super Mario (1985–present). Mendheim focused on characters and personalities so that transmedia content could be made out of them for the franchise, although none was ever made. He wanted to emphasize the "toy aspect" lacking in the series' previous entries but seen in the army men of Toy Story (1995), which he felt could be the "magic" of the franchise. As with other 3DO projects developed and released in the same era, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was made under a year on a tight budget by the staff for long hours and on weekends. The game stars Jim Cummings as all the male characters and Susan Blu as Vikki.

Reception from the specialist gaming press were ambivalent, the general notion being that Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was a fun and humorous action game marred by several graphical and technical problems, such as with the controls, camera, draw distance and overuse of fog. Commercially, Hawkins announced it was the biggest success of the multi-million-dollar franchise and better than most games from The 3DO Company. As of 2022, 1.3 million units of the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation games combined were sold. The characters would star in several of the later Army Men games by The 3DO Company; Army Men: Sarge's Heroes itself garnered two sequels, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 (2000) and Army Men: Sarge's War (2004).

Gameplay[edit]

Green soldiers surround a tan soldier on a wooden desk consisting of paper, a coffee table book, and cups (the one in the center having a blue vortex). This is all in a room with a pink-and-white wall.
In the third-person shooter, soldiers of the Green and Tan Army fight each other on a variety of 3D environments, including those in Our World (the human world). One such setting is a desk with the portal being the opening of a coffee cup (middle).

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes is a third-person shooter where players take the role of soldiers in 3D battlefields.[3] It has the feel, pace, weapons and level design of classic arcade shooters like Ikari Warriors (1986) and Guerrilla War (1987), and also features elements of GoldenEye (1997), Command & Conquer (1995), and platform video games.[3] In Their World (the setting for the plastic soldiers) The Green Army, led by Colonel Grimm, has members of the Bravo Company, its best troops, and Grimm's daughter Vikki, a top reporter for the official Green Army newspaper Green Star News, captured by the Tan Army, led by General Plastro.[4][5] The Tan Army have discovered portals to Our World (the human world), which lie weapons such as magnifying glasses that can melt soldiers.[4][5][6][7] On the Green Army's base, the game's first mission is the leader of the Bravo Company that did not get captured, Sargent Hawk, getting Grimm, his mentor, to an escape chopper. This is all the while the invading Tan Army and other Green Army soldiers attack each other, where Sarge also helps his fellow men.[3]

The Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions have 14 missions with up to five objectives each, the Dreamcast 16 missions with three-to-four objectives each, totaling to 40.[4][8][9] Tasks vary from finding and rescuing the Bravo Company and Vikki, and disabling a "bug zapper" gate, to capturing blue spies, killing Tan Army soldiers and destroying the portals.[8][9][10][11] The camera defaults to a steady and slightly over-the-shoulder third-person perspective of the player character.[4][12] Other options are to view the character from the front or first-person, activated with the press of a button.[5][13] The 3D spaces can theoretically be traversed at the player's own free will, but the missions can be completed by following a path with no requirement for backtracking.[9]

The mission locations bounce between Their World (the plastic world) and Our World (known by Plastro as the Alternate World, the human world).[10][c] In Their World, the soldiers are scaled human-size in proportion to the setting, and fight on army bases, forests, towns, mountains, and snowy wastelands.[5][10][15] In Our World, the plastic soldiers are tiny in proportion to the space and battle in areas of a typical American suburban household, such as the countertop of a kitchen, sandbox, backyard, living room, bedroom, garden, and bathroom.[d] In Their World, foes are the Tan army's soldiers (which dies in one or two hits), tanks and helicopters, while in Our World, enemies include a big spider.[6][17]

Nine characters are playable in single and multi-player modes.[4][8] With control that heavily uses context-sensitive buttons like a previously released Nintendo 64 game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), the player can jump, climb, latch onto ledges, drop and roll, crawl, crouch, strafe, and sneak up to enemies and attack them typical in stealth games.[e] In addition to Hawk, Grimm, Vikki, and Plastro, the game stars five Bravo Company soldiers, modeled after specific poses. The Riff is a Bazooka Man with "the musical chops and coolness of a Blues musician". Hoover is a very skinny, geeky Mine Sweeper hired for his fluid movements and intense focus. Sharp, a Morter Man with a surfer dude personality; Thick, the M-60 Machine Gunner with a strong aim but low intelligence; and Scorch, a Flamethrower so mentally-unstable he loves being near fire.[5] In single player, Sarge and whoever is rescued are the only playable characters; in a mission, a rescued soldier assists for the remainder of a mission, which ends prematurely if they die.[19] In multiplayer modes, players can act as a tan, blue or grey fighter as well as a green one.[20]

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes features variations on 13 weapons that equip the player, most of which require the rescue of commandos that each have a unique set of weapons: an M16 rifle, .50-caliber M60, sniper rifle with a scope for zooming, shotgun, grenade, grenade launcher, C-4, flamethrower, artillery launcher, bazooka, mortar, satchel charge, and mine detector.[8][9][15][13] Collected extra weapons are removed from the inventory by the entrance of the next world.[21] Via simple objectives, the Boot Camp mode, which takes place on a practice range, teaches the player how to platform, use the weapons and push down the levers.[4][10]

Some tasks can be only be achieved with certain equipment; soldiers on mountaintops can only be killed with snipers, and those in bunkers with grenades. Additionally, some lands are filled with hidden mines solely detectable with the minesweeper.[13] Other scenarios allow multiple choices of weapons to take out opponents. For example, when destroying a tank, it is longer but safer to lay mines around it and then activate them with a grenade throw, than directly destroy it with a bazooka, where missing the shooting could gain the riders of the tank attention to the player character.[4] All weapons besides the default M16 rifle are out of the soldiers' bag if a life is lost.[4]

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes features split screen multi-player modes for two players on the PlayStation, and up to four players on the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, consisting of deathmatch, capture the flag, and matches where players invade each other's bases.[f] In a Family Mode borrowed from 3DO's BattleTanx (1998), players can individually choose the difficulty level of the choice of weapons, i.e. ones that are quicker to adapt to.[5]

Background[edit]

In the late 1990s, following the failure of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console, The 3DO Company transitioned to developing and publishing only software.[25]: 75  The move started with the Nintendo 64 multiplayer game Battletanx and the tactical PC game Army Men (based on the green plastic toy soldiers of the same name), both developed by separate teams, released around the same time in 1998, and landing in the top-ten of sales charts.[25]: 75–77  The 3DO Company were influenced by this success to create more Army Men games, with its producers and creative staff conceiving a variety of gameplay styles, such as air combat (Army Men: Air Attack) and war strategy (Army Men: World War).[25]: 76 

This spawned a multi-million-dollar franchise.[25]: 76  As journalists for Game Informer analyzed, the franchise capitalized on a nostalgic revival of toys adults used to play with, like the Army men as well as Mr. Potato Head and Slinky Dog, caused by a film that featured them, Toy Story (1995).[11] 3DO's founder Trip Hawkins, IGN's Dean Austin and PlayStation Pro's Will Johnston attributed the game series' continuing commercial success to the demographic of video game consumers, mostly consisting of men, who had fond memories of playing with the green soldiers.[4][26][27]

Before Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, the series had covered multiple genres and platforms with two tactics games, the first game and its sequel Army Men II (1999) which were both released for PC and the Game Boy Color, and a PlayStation third-person shooter, Army Men 3D (1999).[g] Wrote Joe Fielder of GameSpot, Army Men 3D, the series' first console entry, "lacked a great deal of spit and polish but had enough going deep down to make you hope for a sequel, albeit one that was much improved".[6]

Development[edit]

Conception and design[edit]

Three green plastic bazooka men on dirt in between several strands of grass
Two teams of green soldiers, each consisting of a variety poses, one having a tank, and another having a truck, are separated by a black wire on a kitchen countertop. Behind them is a large black wine bottle and a brown basket.
From left to right: Toy army men assembled on a lawn and a kitchen countertop. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes focused more on the "toy aspect" of the army men than previous series entries, creating scenarios like the ones portrayed here.

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes is the second creative director project for Michael Mendheim, who, like Hawkins, transitioned from Electronic Arts (EA) to The 3DO Company; he joined during the company's transition to solely a game developer and publisher, being creative director for Battletanx.[25]: 75  Designers of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes were Hawkins, B.J. Cholewinski, James Frankle, Mike King, and Robert Zalot.[28][29][30] Justin Bates, Ben Lopez and Jon "Pan" Oakley were only credited as designer on the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast releases,[29][30] James Farley only on the PlayStation.[28] Although Mendheim suggested artist Michael Kennedy was "driving the story and cinematics", the game credited Sharon Wong as writing the story.[28][31]: 78 

Hawkins and Mendheim established Sarge's Heroes as the franchise's inaugural character-oriented action-adventure game, taking inspiration from the style of Super Mario (1985–present) and incorporating mission design akin to GoldenEye (1997).[8][15] Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was first announced by The 3DO Company on March 5, 1999 to be released for the Nintendo 64; it was revealed its genre would deviate from previous Army Men games, being a 3D action game a la the Tomb Raider series (1996–present) or Mission: Impossible (1998) with the sniper mechanics of GoldenEye and MDK (1997).[32] A PlayStation version was announced a month later on April 6, with the clarification that it would not be a sequel to Army Men 3D but another version of the previously-announced Nintendo 64 game.[33] Mendheim's reason for the focus on a narrative starring characters with personalities and gameplay mechanics was as a blueprint for potential toys, TV series and comic books that would form a transmedia universe Mendheim desired. This direction was influenced by the Mutant League games he worked on at EA, which included Mutant League Football (1993) and Mutant League Hockey (1994) and spawned a cartoon show of the same name (1994–1996).[25]: 77 

The only character from a predecessor was the titular protagonist, who was in Army Men 3D.[8] In conceiving the personalities and settings, Mendheim leaned towards what he thought could be the series' "magic", the "toy aspect" seen in the army men of Toy Story.[25]: 77  Although parts of the game would be fighting in the semi-realistic environments of Army Men and Army Men 3D, "I wanted to have these soldiers fighting on kitchen countertops, in a bathtub and under a Christmas tree" as well.[25]: 77–78  In particular, "The thought of kitchen counter warfare sounded like an absolute blast and it was something that hasn't really been done before in an action shooter."[5] Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (1963–1981) and war films like The Dirty Dozen (1976) were inspirations for the characters.[25]: 77  For example, Riff's African-American race and nationality, as well as his tough demeanor, was based on Jim Brown's Robert Jefferson character in The Dirty Dozen.[25]: 77–78  Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) inspired the inclusion of a timid character.[25]: 78 

Production[edit]

Versions of the game had different teams. On the Nintendo 64, the technical director was Dan Geisler, an industry veteran who created EA's Road Rash (1991).[25]: 78  Mendheim considered the engine produced by him and other engineers ambitious, attempting to render high distances of big spaces and, in multi-player, running third-person perspective viewing spots for all four players, all the while maintaining a decent frame rate.[5] The showing-off of the game's scale was also his explanation for a third-person perspective being the default camera setting, an additional rationale being that it was the best way to introduce the new characters.[5] Also on the Nintendo console, Chris Bannock, Todd Stewart, Mike Tsoupko-Sitnikov and Pete "Spuddy" Wiseman were programmers, with Dino Dini, Dominick Regan, Chuck Romberger and Mark Schneckloth credited for additional programming.[29]

On the PlayStation, Bob Smith was technical director; Mendheim called him "a Gods' God", in comparison to Geisler who was simply a "God".[5] When it came to programmers, the PlayStation version had Isaac Bender, Ian Clarke, Burke Drane and Steve Woita on a programming team led by Joel Dinolt; Bannock was credit as an additional programmer alongside Olivier Lhermite and Paul Robinson.[28] The Dreamcast version's programming staff was led by John Renstrom and consisted of Bryan Towler, Jun Liu and "additional programmers" Taylor Colbert and Kier Knowlton.[30] The PC port was made solely by a team at Aqua Pacific that consisted of four programmers: Garry Hughes, Paul Riga, Craig Weeks and Don Williamson.[34]

In the late 1990s, The 3DO Company attempted to have a prolific output with far less money than EA when trying to enter the software market. This caused tight budgets and schedules for projects, requiring workers to be at the studio for long hours and on weekends.[25]: 77  Mendheim improved himself from these experiences, learning how to make games that looked and felt high-value with limited resources.[25]: 77  Although he has never revealed the start and end dates of development, he reported Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was done under a year, and in the last two months, members of the team were working 16–18 hours a day, not going home on some days.[5][25]: 77  Mendheim, in 2022, felt the game needed three more months to fix issues of the camera and difficulty balance.[25]: 79  At Saffire, the Dreamcast project was led by one of its artists, Brent Fox.[30]

A pre-alpha version of the Nintendo 64 game was reviewed in a "Hands On" feature by IGN, published on March 5, 1999. It summarized that split-screen modes for up to four players were planned but not yet implemented. When it came to visuals, the frame rate was reported as smooth, the environments vastly superior to Battletanx.[32] Next Generation's June 1999 insider coverage of the game concluded development was "pretty far along for a fall release date".[15]

Presentation[edit]

Jim Cummings in 2016. He voiced all of the male characters in Army Men: Sarge's Heroes.

Of versions developed by the 3DO Company, Nina Stanley was the art director of the project, implementing various techniques to create a signature style; one was the use of references to photos and live models to design the characters.[5][35] Far more important was the character animation, which Mendheim exclaimed in an interview with Next Generation that "we're putting our chips on [it]."[15] Done at the start of the project, it was hand-drawn for expressive and overelaborate motion not achieve-able with motion capture, which was prominently used in the industry at the time.[5][15] Tests with motion capture were done, but "it just looked scary—kind of surreal" when combined with the plastic shine effects, explained Mendheim.[15] In the end, more than 150 hand-drawn animations were completed for the project.[15] A "Hands On" preview feature from IGN on March 5, 1999 described its animation as "disney-style", with "Realistic movements and funny death animations".[32] Mendheim wanted a more plastic look for the soldiers in comparison to previous entries. To achieve this, Geisler created the Plastosheen engine, which used mathematical formulas that estimated the light reflections.[5]

For both the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation releases, Mike Kennedy, Lance Charnes, Inna Cherneykina, Michael Drake, Michael Groark, Nels Potts, and Brian Steffel were artists, and Olga Chudnovsky, Nathan Walrath, and Glyphx additional artists.[28][29] Kennedy was lead artist, Groark a main artist and Charnes an additional artist on the PlayStation.[28] Charnes was a main artist and Kennedy and Groark only additional artists on the Nintendo 64.[29] The PlayStation game also had Vadim Grigoriev, Audrey Rubetskoy, Jane Sommerhauser, and Leonid Starkov as artists.[28] For the Nintendo 64 game, Animatek was an additional artist.[29] On the Dreamcast, Don Seegmiller was art director. Fox, Robyn Miley, Johnny Breeze, Richard Russell, Mike May, and Todd Dewsnup were artists, Dave McClellan and Robert Rumel additional artists.[30] In a retrospective interview, Mendheim credited Michael "Vick" Vaverka as an "art lead".[31]: 78  However, all versions only credit him as responsible for cutscenes, alongside Isaac Bender.[28][29]

Due to the disparate architecture between consoles, each version exploited different aspects, particularly with the graphics. Although Mendheim felt the Nintendo 64 could render in-game graphics better, the PlayStation had the capacity to play video files, influencing the creation of video cutscenes for the PlayStation version.[25]: 78–79  Jim Cummings, a voice actor of several notable cartoon characters like Tigger throughout his career, voiced all of the game's male characters.[25]: 78  He was given summaries and a few photos of the characters, and he improvised the voices for them on the spot, causing redesigns to suit the performances.[25]: 78  Susan Blu was the only other voice actor, playing Vikki.[28]

Release and promotion[edit]

On the night of March 4, 1999, The 3DO Company held a hidden "pre-E3 bash" in San Francisco. It featured numerous surprise attractions, one of them a playable version of the Nintendo 64 version of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes.[36] Army Men, in its second year of existence in 1999, saw five games: Army Men II, Army Men 3D, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, Army Men: Air Attack and Army Men: Toys in Space, the latter three released at the end of the year.[37] Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was the first Nintendo 64 Army Men game, released in 1999 in North America on September 28 and Australia in November.[15][38][13]: 53  On the PlayStation, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was released in 2000, on February 23 in North America and August 17 in Europe.[39] It is the third PlayStation Army Men game after Army Men 3D and Army Men: Air Attack (1999), and was part of a wave of sequels released between 2000 and 2001 that also include entries for series like Crash Bandicoot (1996–present), Tomb Raider (1996–present) and Twisted Metal (1995–2012).[8]

Reception[edit]

Critical response[edit]

Although Mendheim, two decades later, remembered the contemporaneous reviews of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes as "decent", aggregates of professional review scores paint a more middling picture.[65][25]: 79 [43] On GameRankings, average ratings of versions of the game range from 49% to 62%.[40][41][42] The consensus was it was far better in concept than execution, a fun, humorous and promising action game at its core marred by issues related to the visuals and technical aspects.[k] Reviews from Next Generation and GamePro suggested it was enjoyable if its serious faults can be accepted.[12][16] The general recommendation was a rental.[l]

Concept[edit]

Parts of the concept that charmed critics were its story, characters, humor, offbeat nature, and small toys fighting each other in gigantic real-life spaces.[m] The toys alternating between both universes intrigued IGN's Dean Austin and Electronic Gaming Monthly's (EGM) John Davison as unusually ambitious for the contemporary era of gaming, and N64 Magazine's Jess Bickham as a "inspiring" combination of GoldenEye and the Micro Machines series (1991–2017).[4][47][56] CNET Gamecenter's Andy Mahood appreciated it as a blend of realistic situations and fantasy, and IGN co-founder and reviewer Douglass C. Perry noted its contribution of variation to the series.[8][10]

In the memory of Tom Chick of CNET Gamecenter, the only other times a toy-sized playable character in massive settings had been tried was in a few maps of PC games, such as a library in Sin's (1998) deathmatch mode, and Unreal's (1998) DMBreakfast map.[18] A few reviewers questioned the physical rules of the game world. Crispin Boyer of EGM was baffled by water killing the soldiers, while Jules Grant of The Electric Playground wondered how a soldier could kill a big tank simply from shooting a grenade launcher behind it, suffering no damage in the process.[46][48]

Gameplay[edit]

The Electric Playground's Miguel Lopez called Army Men: Sarge's Heroes "unexquisite torture" to play, while AllGame's Shawn Sackenheim explained the "cheap thrill" of the training mission was the game's most fun.[45][49] Some criticized the gameplay as monotonous, constantly shooting and blowing up enemies and tanks with the same set of weapons and no deviation from the formula of finding an individual or object then destroying another.[19][46][53][54] Wrote Boyer, the perfect precision of the auto-aim made progression "mindless", with the occasional aggravation from a sudden death by a enemy that pops up out of nowhere.[46]

However, praise was given to the missions for being fun, long and diverse, with "entertaining and inventive plot twists" as Mahood rejoiced.[n] However, Grant explained the variety was small, and Georg of Mega Fun thought it was not enough to make the general experience deep enough.[48][55] The action scenarios were also favorably received.[53] Ceberus of GameFan appreciated the incorporation of other soldiers on the player character's side fighting against the opponents, providing a feeling of team play unusual for shooter games released up to Army Men: Sarge's Heroes.[3]

Controls and camera[edit]

The controls were widely labeled extremely slow, unresponsive, imprecise, cumbersome, and loose.[o] Praise was limited to a comment by Chick, who called the button layout "very good".[18] Tom "Tosh" Goldsmith of Eurogamer wrote that the movement was so unresponsive, and the buttons so numerous, that properly controlling the character was "half the battle".[19] Scary Larry of GamePro also targeted the traversal control; although switching weapons was always reliable and movements like strafing, crouching and rolling were only a bit harder, traversing was jerky to the point of being useless of getting out of enemy fire.[16] When it came to crawling, Sackenheim thought it was simple to get into while standing still, but needlessly complicated when running because it required the player character to do a jump animation and land onto the part of the ground where the crawling would begin; due to the fast-paced action, this created the potential for landing into water, on a mine or on enemy sight.[45] Mega Fun's Georg also reported poor precision in the jumping.[55]

The most condemned specific of the control was turning. Critics argued that it took too long to turn around for the player character to be positioned against the attacking enemies.[11][45][47] Joe Rybicki, writing for Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, wrote turning took "a ridiculously long time" in digital mode, and was "strangely" inaccurate on analog.[59] Wrote Sackenheim, the Nintendo 64 control setup was the same as the PlayStation's, meaning holding left and right on the analog stick turned the camera, making the character turning more cumbersome.[45] Perry derided the absence of backing off, meaning taking a long time to turn around before moving forward was the only way to get out of a bombardment of shooting enemies in front.[8]

The camera was panned.[11][56] It was commonly derided for its floaty movement and failure to keep up with sudden turnarounds and increases in movements in a short-enough amount of time, causing an inability to position the character to see attacking out-of-sight enemies and, thus, injuries by them.[p] As a consequence, to avoid the shots of a bombardment of enemies, the easy-to-use auto-aim of the default weapon was not only useful but also necessary, according to Austin, Axel, Boyer and Lopez.[4][21][46][49] Scary Larry explained the player would have to run in circles.[16] Although citing other "decent" 3D games were marred by a poor camera, Chick was surprised these issues persisted in the Snap-To feature, and particularly noted their harm on the multiplayer mode, requiring the frequent activation of the over-the-top radar.[18] A few critics explained the biggest cause of frustration was the combination of controls and camera problems.[12][47] Lopez provided a detailed summary of this in his Nintendo 64 review:

The camera makes war truly seem like hell and the controls aren’t responsive enough to compensate. Example: you see a box of ammo. You want it. You begin making for it. Whoop, an enemy. You gotta avoid him. No problem. Now, your trajectory is a bit off. Cake walk, you say to yourself. Ratatatatatat, says the foe’s machine-gun, as it shreds plastic. Better hurry to the ammo, man. First, pick off the enemy. Done. OK, now where’d the ammo go? Oh, the camera has gone and made it invisible. Shift to the right, WHAM, a wall. Shift to the left, and there’re the wide open spaces. You KNOW where the ammo is, and you know you have to get it, but the vile camera just WON’T zero in on it. After several wasted seconds (and sizable chunks of your health-bar), you finally find the ammo. Now, you only have to maneuver two or three awkward circles around it, and it’s yours.[49]

Weapons[edit]

Both sides of an M16 rifle
A man holding a flamethrower
The set of weapons were mostly praised for the variety, ranging from a M16 rifle (left) to a flamethrower (right).

When it came to weapons, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes was mostly praised for its high quantity and variety, N64 Magazine's Jes Bickham calling them "mostly fun".[q] Comments about specifics were far less common and generally leaned poor. Richie Shoemaker of the UK edition of Official Dreamcast Magazine called its weapon variety lesser than Toy Commander (1999), which was more focused on vehicles than combat. He argued few weapons lacked any required "real skill" to learn.[63] Rybicki complained that it took too long for a bullet to hit its target and was turned off by the seemingly "random" shots of the auto-aim.[59]

Adam negatively described the shooting cursor of the first-person perspective as too slow, and PlayStation Pro's Will Johnston and Mega Fun's Georg called close-up combat so inaccurate the enemy was just as likely to injure the player character as vice versa.[13][55][26] Grant criticized the crosshairs for nearly camouflaging with the background in several instances, and he and Axel were annoyed additionally-collected weapons did not transfer to the next mission.[48][21] Axel did however, enjoy the auto-aim of the M16 and admitted the snipper was his favorite weapon.[21] Perry called mines useless for blowing up a tank, stating it would take at least 45 minutes as a result of poor collision detection and the amount of mines required for a explosion, four-to-five.[8]

Technical flaws[edit]

Comments on the collision detection were negative.[62] Fielder and Goldsmith reported falling to the ground several times.[6][19] CNET Gamecenter's Andy Mahood reported draw-throughs of walls if the player character is close enough to one, joking the player will perceive them as about to fall out of the television screen.[10] Axel of the German magazine Video Games described the detection of where the player character is standing in relation to the levers as inaccurate, complaining deaths near completion of a mission occur as a result.[21] Rybicki argued the problem caused imprecision in shooting.[59]

The artificial intelligence (AI) was criticized as nonsensical. In Perry's play-through, he faced enemies that would attack if their back was only approached, and those that did nothing even if several bullets were being shot close behind.[8] According to him as well as Mahood and Jay, there were several enemies that would not attack even if up close to the chest.[8][10][11] Documented Davison, the enemies behaved very poorly unless you get in point-blank range, when they shoot the player character with "superhuman accuracy".[47] Mahood and Davison also criticized the AI of Sarge's colleagues during rescue missions, who got stuck walking into collision, thus being left behind, and ran into gunfire, causing game overs.[47][10]

The N64 and PS1 versions were reported to have an abundance of fog and pop-ups caused by a low draw distance, hindering navigation and detracting from the experience.[r] Mahood wrote that it was hard to see 20 feet away of the player character, Jake the Snake 50 feet.[10][14] Mahood called the pop-up of enemies and setting details "alarming" sometimes.[10] A small minority of reviews commented on the framerate, choppy on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions, and consistent for the Dreamcast.[s] In a Nintendo 64 review for Superjuegos, De Lucar claimed that on single-player, it was choppy but not to the point of being unplayable, while it was worse in two-player.[60] Reviewing the same version for EGM, Boyer revealed zooming out the camera cut the frame rate.[47]

Graphics[edit]

A green man holds up a shotgun, his body reflecting light via his pants, coat and chain.
The look of the soldiers was praised as reflecting that of the real toys, including the lighting and shining.

Viewpoints of the graphics were divided. At best, it was called "darned good" by EGM's Shawn Smith and "beautiful" by Game Informer staff, and lesser so, described as simply decent by GameFan reviewers, solid by Sackenheim and all right by Axel.[t] Perry, CNET Gamecenter critic Tom Chick, and GameSpot writer Joe Fiedler called the graphics weaker than 3D games released in the previous few years, N64 Gamer's Arthur Adam on par.[8][6][18][13]

On the Nintendo 64, Sackenheim considered the explosion effects a success, suggesting players would "crack a smile", if not be amazed, by them.[45] He cited the smoke and "flash of fiery orange" of the explosive weapons, such as bazookas, mortars, and grenades, the flashes on the machine gun, and the flames bursted on a tank.[45]

The look of the characters and their plastic texturing was favorably-received.[14][52][56] Reviewers of the Nintendo 64 version were amazed by the use of lighting and shining effects on the soldiers' surface material, truly realized with the Game Pak activated.[13][49][58][61] The animations were also acclaimed by Smith, Adam and Chick, who called them as "smooth and graceful" as GoldenEye 007.[18][13][47]

Some reviewers were disappointed with the scarcity of props in the 3D spaces,[u] although Austin and Axel clarified it was much less of a problem in the human world.[4][21] Even acknowledging the idea that sparsely-populated environments were suitable for a video game about toys fighting each other, Austin was still let down. He wished specifically wished for "more choices of flora and fauna to hide behind".[4] Goldsmith wrote the locations in Their World consisted of the same "horrid green fields", and suggested all of the levels should have taken place in Our World, recommending themes suitable for the characters such as a workshop.[19]

Differences between versions[edit]

The Dreamcast port was considered an improvement over other versions, such as the PlayStation release, in terms of its graphics.[v] However, they were still critique'd. A reviewer for the US edition of Official Dreamcast Magazine, Chris Charla, cited it as part of a trend of Dreamcast ports where only some aspects of the visuals were "photo-realistic" and others on par with the PlayStation.[64] Anthony Chau of IGN opined the graphics were "just plain old and average", failing to meet the standards of even a first-generation Dreamcast game, Sonic Adventure (1998), as well as games released on the console the year before, Shenmue (1999) and Quake III Arena (1999).[53] Charla and M! Games's Oliver Schultes, however, considered its control far better, and Charla reported the camera rarely shifts left and right as with other versions.[54][64] Boyer, conversely, claimed control issues were still prevalent, specifically with the precision and responsive of jumping and walking.[46]

Comparisons to other games[edit]

Some compared Sarge's Heroes to previous Army Men entries. Chick called it, by default, one of the best of what he found to be an overall lackluster franchise of "pretty disappointing" strategy PC titles and a "muddy and hard to control" PlayStation game.[18] Conversely, Rybicki was disappointed by how poor he perceived Sarge's Heroes to be in comparison to Army Men 3D, concluding that the inclusion of real world levels was the only superior aspect.[59] Andy, the Game Hombre of Game Informer, a fan of Army Men 3D, critique'd Sarge's Heroes' difference from the predecessor as too small, elaborating that first-timers to the series would be entertained but players of the previous game will get the same experience, except new missions.[11] Critics considered the graphics a step up, citing a more vibrant color palette and more plastic-looking texturing.[8][18][16][52] In terms of control, Perry and Johnston suggested they were worse,[8][26] although Fielder and GamePro journalist Jake the Snake appreciated the addition of the strafe movement.[14][6] Jake the Snake did, however, find it inferior to Medal of Honor (1999) and Syphon Filter 2 (2000).[14]

Commercial performance[edit]

When announcing the release of a PlayStation port, Hawkins announced Army Men: Sarge's Heroes as the best-selling game in the series so far, and doing better than most other 3DO games, such as Battletanx and games in the company's Might and Magic (1996–2003) and High Heat (1998–2003) properties.[27] Upon its October 1999 release, the Nintendo 64 version debuted at number four on Video Software Dealers Association's console game rental chart, above Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) but below the chart-topping Pokémon Snap (1999) and two PlayStation games, Driver (1999) and WCW Mayhem (1999).[66] In Patrick Hickey Jr.'s feature on the development of the game in the 2022 book The Mind Behind Playstation Games, it was reported that its Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions combined sold 1.3 million units.[25]: 74  In an interview conducted for the book, Mendheim stated it was a number-one hit on the Nintendo 64 chart and a top-ten hit for that of the PlayStation.[25]: 77 

Legacy[edit]

Many later Army Men games, including 3DO's final game for the franchise Army Men: RTS (2002), would star all of the characters introduced in Army Men: Sarge's Heroes.[67] A spin-off game starring Vikki, Portal Runner (2001), was released on the PlayStation 2.[65] Army Men: Sarge's Heroes spawned two sequels of its own: Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 (2000) and Army Men: Sarge's War (2004), the latter of which was developed and released after The 3DO Company's selling of the franchise to Global Star Software.[25]: 79–80 

Explained Mendheim, the hit status of the early Army Men games, like Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, gave The 3DO Company the notion that they could keep pumping out more of them every quarter; this caused the series' decline of innovation, quality and popularity with the press and players to bargain bin status.[25]: 80 [37] Zoey Hendley, in 2021, noted its prolific output as more than that of franchises like Guitar Hero (2005–2015).[37] Hickey Jr. explained retrospective players and writers debate which Army Men had the longest staying power, but he felt the arcade-style gameplay and child-friendly plot of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes made it the most accessible.[25]

Digital Cybercherries' shooter game Hypercharge: Unboxed (2020), conceived out of the development team's session of watching Small Soldiers (1998) on television, was partially influenced by Army Men: Sarge's Heroes.[68]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Ported to Dreamcast by Saffire.
  2. ^ Dreamcast version published by Midway. PC version published in North America by GT Interactive.
  3. ^ 3DO's Michael Mendheim referred to the universes as Their World and Our World/Alternate World, while Nintendo 64 and PlayStation reviews from GamePro and IGN stated their names as the Plastic World and the Real World.[4][5][8][14]
  4. ^ [4][5][8][16][14][10]
  5. ^ [4][8][9][12][18]
  6. ^ [4][8][10][22][23][24]
  7. ^ [4][6][7][11][21]
  8. ^ Four critics of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Nintendo 64 version each a score of 5/10, 6/10, 4.5/10, and 3/10.[47]
  9. ^ GamePro gave the Nintendo 64 version three 4/5 scores for graphics, sound, and fun factor, and 3/5 for control.[16]
  10. ^ GamePro gave the PlayStation version four 3.5/5 scores for graphics, sound, control, and fun factor.[14]
  11. ^ [8][11][13][45][10][47][16][56][58][26]
  12. ^ [4][11][10][20][47][46][57]
  13. ^ [10][11][47][53][56][58][61]
  14. ^ [10][11][47][51][55]
  15. ^ [10][11][47][14][56][58][26][62]
  16. ^ [4][6][52][13][20][21][61]
  17. ^ [4][18][10][7][48][16][51][56][21]
  18. ^ [4][6][56][59][61][21][62]
  19. ^ [11][22][47][48][60]
  20. ^ [11][51][47][21][45]
  21. ^ [6][13][52][53][57]
  22. ^ [9][57][54][63][64]

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External links[edit]

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