Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 is a third-person shooter developed and published by The 3DO Company in September of the year 2000.

The game was released on Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2.

There was also a release of the game on Game Boy Color, but it differed greatly from the console versions in both gameplay and story.  I may do a review on that game at a later date, but for now i’ll be focusing on the console release.

In this game the player controls both Sarge and Vikki to battle the tan soldiers and destroy caches of serum that were developed by a Blue Nation spy Bridget Bleu.  The plot involves Field Marshal Tannenberg planning to use this serum to reverse the plastrification of General Plastro, which was the main villain from the first game.

Plastrification in this universe is a sort of sickness, or condition, where plastic soldiers will start to turn into actual toys from spending too much time in the real world.

The levels of the game alternate between real world and plastic world levels, and to me that’s actually where the game really shines.  The level design and charming environments is what the game gets right.  You’re a toy soldier, you want to see the cool settings where you would have actually played with toy soldiers in real life.  The dining room table, the bedroom surrounded by other toys, train sets, the refrigerator …well, maybe not that last one, but you get my point.  When you’re blasting away enemy soldiers left and right from the top of the dinner table, and you see an enemy helicopter fly in and you need to switch out your bazooka to blast it out of the sky, you get a sense that you’re playing with actual toys and not just playing a generic shooter.  The colorful settings and the variety of weapons really does make this goofy game worth giving a play through, because the rest of the game leaves a lot to be desired.

Be ready to endure some repetition.  The charm runs off after shooting your bazillionth generic tan soldier, and although the level design does help keep things a little interesting, the fact that you’re doing the same thing on most levels doesn’t.  The levels take around 5 to 10 minutes to complete which is a good thing in my opinion, quick and short.  The levels that took too long were mostly due to the issues I have with the platforming in this game, and word of advice, if you’re trying this game out and you have the option of choosing between the Nintendo 64 version and Playstation, then go with Playstation. I made the mistake of playing this on the Nintendo 64 and let me tell you, the most difficult rage inducing parts of this game were the result of trying to platform using the single joystick on the 64 controller. Besides the platforming though, the biggest difference between the short and long levels were that instead of shooting lets say 10 tan soldiers, well, now there’s 20, and the level is twice as long. A single robot that shoots missiles on a short level? Well this is a long level, so we’re gonna have to fight 3. That sort of thing.

In the end, I’m hoping that my review didn’t discourage anyone from trying it this game if it’s in your backlog, because it can be pretty enjoyable with it’s light-hearted goofy dialogue and game play.

I’ll be giving this game a final score of 4 out of 10.