Army Men: Real Combat, Plastic Men

Anybody remember these games from back in the day? 3DO started the franchise back in the late 90's during the height of the PSX era and the series is known for starting out with some amazing titles before jumping the shark and tanking hard, especially after 3DO went under and various companies passed the license around like a game of hot potato.

While the Army Men games were hated by nearly every major game reviewer (though Sarge's Heroes and the Air Attack game usually get a free pass), I enjoyed them greatly. Of course, that may be because I also enjoyed playing with actual Army Men as a kid and the screwball humor of the franchise kind of appealed to me back then. These games were a big part of my childhood and I figured I'd start a thread.

Some of my favorite games in the series were Army Men 3D, Sarge's Heroes, Air Attack, and Green Rogue.

Feel free to discuss the franchise, whether it be fond memories of the early installments on the PSX and N64 or just to mock the shitty later games from the PS2 era onwards.

 

I've played a bit of the first 2 PC games and the N64 game, which can be frustratingly difficult.

One of my favorite things about the PC games was shooting lighters and watching them explode.

 

I never played those games, but I remember the ads in magazines that made them look neat. "I love the smell of melted plastic in the morning."

And I've read online reviews, where every game in the series was called at best mediocre. The one exception being Air Attack.

 

I only played the RTS game on PC. It was a fairly decent real time strategy game, and did pretty clever things to tie in with conventions of the genre. One I remember was harvesting resources like plastic from random toys laying around the house.

Spoiler

FUCKING BEIGES

 

I picked that up on Gamecube for real cheap. I was shocked that it was pretty much a Command and Conquor clone.

Doesn't make it bad, just that if I wanted to play CnC, I'd play CnC

The trilogy of PC games I kinda love. Yeah, they are kinda quirky but I like the concept of a isometric RTS combined with a sorta third person shooter (albiet from the top)

Just a fun concept.

Edit: I'd actually post the Gog.com install files if I get approval from a mod saying it's okay, btw.

 

I loved the army men franchise so unironically as a kid I remember writing what was in hindsight a rather cringy letter to the editor of game informer that im sure didnt get published asking them why they hate it so much. I think its really one of the underappreciated franchises of the 90s that shat out reasonable action games but in hindsight had awful controls you could only stand as a kid. (On N64, I didnt learn until years later it was originally a PC series)

The RTS was GOAT though.

 

I played through Army Men I and II when I was a kid. I thought they were fantastic growing up and I intend to go back and play them again someday. While I have some knowledge that the later games were hated by critics I had no idea people disliked the earlier ones.

Though every kid I knew growing up absolutely loved Sarge's Heroes and any time some kid who owned an N64 or Dreamcast had a slumber party everyone wanted to have a turn playing splitscreen multiplayer.

 

As spergy as this sounds, I've considered starting a role-playing game (either IRL tabletop or as a forum-based roleplay on another site) based on Army Men (both the games and the toys)

This website in particular helped inspire me to do this idea. If you're a fan of Army Men or plastic toy soldiers in general, this site is awesome.

http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/

 

that would actually be a

a tabletop army men RPG would be a great idea and I'd be surprised if nobody's tried this considering you'd have to be weird if you didn't have some as a kid.

 

I'll get to work on it and start up a play-by-post forum for it, then.

 

Oh my god, this series needs to come back. Since unrealistic shooters like Garden Warfare and Overwatch are popular, now would be a great time for Army Men to come back.

 

Yeah, great point. Army men phased out about the time realistic games were all the rage like CoD and people sperged about sweat in NBA games.

 

As far as spergy ideas go, an RPG doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. I'd help write it I guess.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/360940/

 

Theres also http://store.steampowered.com/app/262120/ which I can vouch for being pretty alright. Sadly I dont think anyone plays the multiplayer which is a shame because it looks pretty swell.

The game I linked is also a regular third person shooter, so you'll have to get your isometric RTS fix elsewhere. If you want something in the same semi-comical theme where you control one unit directly and give orders to others, I can also recomend Battallion Wars for the Gamecube and its followup for the Wii.

That's prob more what you are looking for. Cheers.

 

Currently working on a homebrew tabletop RPG system for Army Men, if anyone is interested.

 

I'm a total dumbass when it comes to emulation and Homebrew, but anyone willing to bring this series back is A-Ok in my book

 

I'm thinking of some system ideas for my Army Men RPG. I'm leaning towards Big Eyes Small Mouth/Tri-Stat since it's rules light and fairly universal. Though I have also considered modding Original Dungeons & Dragons or B/X to fit the theme.