Avoid this one and move along before it sucks out your soul!
Army Men Green Rogue is typical 3DO. It is a broken, half-finished disaster of a game and lacks any sort of originality or potential to be bettered. I guess that would have been a shame had I cared for the series. It is a shame that I had any hope at all, because when I first played it, I tried to like Army Men Green Rogue and was atleast able to get over some of the more tedious problems with the game for a time. How foolish of me. How very foolish of me.
The premise of Army Men Green Rogue is that the Green Army have captured and spliced the genetics of Sarge's Squad to create a one-man army super soldier. All goes well and the production of the clone is a success except the convoy carrying him is shot down by tan forces. Now alone, the super soldier awakens, lawless and without order, he relies on his gut instincts to gain vengeance and does so by creating a path of destruction. Freaking A.
Shame It only meant the game could be developed as a half-arsed attempt at a straightforward on-rails shooter. Damn. It is clear that 3DO's intentions with this one was to provide an arcade experience akin to Commando or Contra that allows for instant accessibility. Infact it even borrows features from games like Smash TV and Robotron 2084, such as right analogue stick aiming, and somehow makes them uncomfortable to deal with. It explains the ability to play the campaign in co-op also yet strangely Green Rogue lacks any sort of drop-in and drop-out play like perhaps it shouldn't have done.
And strangely also, there aren't any sort of punishments for dying and using continues on Green Rogue aside from that you'll obviously lose the super powered versions of your weapons. Fair enough. Actually once you understand that the weapon balancing works vastly in favour of the rocket launcher anyway THEN you'll realise that completing the game on one continue is mostly very, very easy. I suppose that is why Green Rogue falters. Once the challenge is lost from the realisation that this is as simple as it gets, the game becomes a drag.
All the surprise enemies and bosses are an absolute joke as the ultimate level rocket launcher sends two powerful lock-on missiles to whatever you point it at. Although I suppose when the game can randomly crash every so often out of nowhere it is of some relief that Green Rogue is as easy as it is. 3DO's games are always riddled with technical flaws and unfortunately this is only one of them. Remember when I said Green Rogue was an on-rails shooter?
Well the on-rails camera sucks. Besides having bizarre angles and simply moving too slowly for what it is worth, it is very easy to get stuck with it as the game will force you to keep moving forward as you find yourself trapped behind a tree branch or something of equally ridiculous value. Not only does this leave you vulnerable to enemy attack but as the camera decides to fix this it takes a bite out of your health. Not cool.
Coincidentally the technical flaws, including the slow camera and on-rails gameplay, all work their worst on the final level. It is abysmal, especially on the final boss. The camera is pointed entirely at the wrong side of the screen, moving very slowly no less, and you can't see what you're doing! But there are other sections of the game that I felt were made unnecessarily difficult because of bad design.
All the ice levels can become an eyesore, as there is so much white on the screen. Your bullets are white, the snow is white and some of the enemies are a greyish tone of white. So don't be surprised if you accidentally absorb enemy fire on those levels without realising it. And while we're on the topic of visuals, let me tell you that Army Men Green Rogue is one of the most ugly Playstation 2 games I've ever played. It looks barely even Dreamcast quality; drab textures, low poly character and environment models and not very spectacular shading effects either.
As if to rub salt into the wound, the game runs choppy at times and can at times become unplayable from stutter and erratic frame-rates which is darn right frustrating. The sound design of Army Men Green Rogue is equally as poor. Everything is regrettably low quality and forgettable. Even though Jim Cummings provides the voices, the acting is sub-par and the music will make your ears bleed. Army Men Green Rogue is comprised of sixteen stages, each being around ten to fifteen minutes long to complete.
If you're competent enough to play the whole thing, it can be completed in less than five hours. There are no rewards to completing the game besides a very short and considerably pointless ending which is a shame. Not that it matters anymore because, as you might imagine already, Army Men Green Rogue speaks in vast volumes in the realms of disappointment. Perhaps I am giving this unfortunate sack of crap too much credit. Without going into irate territory about how much I do just hate Army Men Green Rogue I think I'll settle with only stating the now blatantly obvious conclusion to the review.
DON'T BUY THIS GAME. Army Men Green Rogue is terrible! It is venom and will make you go insane. It'll cause you to lie, cheat and steal. It'll make you murder kittens! Kittens I tell you! So yeah… I suggest you avoid this one and quickly move along before it sucks out your soul.