Army Men is a series of video games developed by 3DO and Global Star Software. It is based on various conflicts between four kinds of plastic army men, distinguished by their color: the Green, the Tan, the Blue, and the Grey. Two other factions, the Red and the Orange, as well as a much smaller army, the Black, also contribute to the story. Two additional factions, the Galactic Army and the Alien Army, were introduced in Army Men: Toys in Space.
Video Army Men
History
Studio 3DO era
The idea of a strategy game using plastic army men arose from the developers' desire to avoid censorship issues when publishing the game in Germany. Chris Wilson, producer of the original Army Men, explained:
The Germans are extremely uptight about realistic violence, so Command & Conquer, for instance, changed all its units into robots and changed some of the cut scenes. But we didn't want to have to do two versions, and very early on in the design process we'd been planning things out with little plastic army men, so we suddenly realized that this was what everyone always likens a game like this to anyway!
Army Men used cutscenes done in the style of Movietone News clips.
Global Star era
Army Men: RTS was the last Army Men game to be released by The 3DO Company before they filed for chapter eleven bankruptcy. The major franchises were auctioned off, and Army Men was purchased by Global Star Software (now known as 2K Play).
In 2004, Global Star published Sarge's War. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions were completed by some members of the original Sarge's War development team from 3DO. Global Star then released Army Men: Major Malfunction for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, and planned a Nintendo DS version, which was not released. Both Major Malfunction and Soldiers of Misfortune were unfavorably received by critics. Army Men: Mobile Ops is the latest game in the series.
Maps Army Men
Games
Reception
During its later years, the Army Men series was criticized by X-Play and Seanbaby of EGM, for the frequency and declining quality of each new title. The Official UK PlayStation Magazine awarded six games in the series a score of 3/10 or less.
References
External links
- Army Men series at MobyGames
Source of the article : Wikipedia