Army Men

At one point in my childhood these this series was the only video games I owned I still have the collection on disk to this day and this hit my nostalgia like a freight train. Army Men (1998) is a classic top down shooter by The 3DO Company where you play as Sarge a plastic soldier who dies… a lot. Tanks, mines, flamethrowers, your own explosives you name it. “Sarge is dead” becomes a regular occurrence. There’s actually some cool lore here with Green, Tan, Blue, and Gray factions, plus a WW2 style newsreel intro and a simple campaign about stopping a superweapon. It’s not deep, but it adds charm. The biggest issue is the controls. Default numpad movement, awkward aiming, and clunky shooting make this harder than it needs to be, it’s easily the game’s biggest barrier. Once you get past that, there’s a solid mix of weapons (rifles, bazookas, flamethrowers, etc.) and useful support abilities like airstrikes and paratroopers. The gameplay can be surprisingly strategic, but also frustrating due to difficulty spikes and dated design. Worth trying but extremely dated so beware.

Army Men is the title that launched one of the more unusual and enduring concepts in late-1990s PC gaming: a war fought not between nations of flesh and blood, but between molded plastic soldiers locked in an endless green-versus-tan conflict. Developed by The 3DO Company, the game places players in the boots of Sarge, a hardened commander of the Green Army tasked with pushing back the Tan Republic across a wide array of hostile environments. Though framed with the seriousness of a traditional military campaign, the entire premise is infused with the playful absurdity of toy soldiers waging total war. This contrast between earnest war drama and miniature plastic combat gives the game a distinctive personality that immediately separates it from more conventional strategy or action titles of its era. Rather than functioning as a traditional resource-driven real-time strategy experience, Army Men operates as a mission-based real-time tactics game. Players control Sarge directly from an isometric perspective while issuing commands to small squads of infantry. Each mission focuses on specific objectives, ranging from destroying enemy installations and rescuing captured allies to defend…

Don't be fooled by people telling you that this game hasn't aged well, even back in the day the critics had a less favorable opinion of this game. But nevertheless, this game certainly has its charm, if you are able to tolerate its "trial and error" design.

Great late 90s action game. Loved it as a kid. Its one of those games Get GUD but its fun. if you want to start playing any of the Army men games not a bad place to start

I received the original game in "battle chest" that had Army Men 2 and Toys in Space from a cousin. It was a Christmas gift I received on Christmas Eve, and that cousin died the same night. When I installed the game the following night, the game somehow already had pre-created profiles named after myself and my brother. I couldn't explain it, nor was I able to recreate that incident. Anyways, tragic and slightly spooky story aside, the game still works on Windows 11. Alt+Tab doesn't work (according to the readme, it causes crashes). But the game itself works. It's not a terribly deep or amazing game, but it may hold nostalgic value for some people like myself. It's kind of like a top-down 2D version of the N64 Army Men game. The sequel and Toys in Space is a lot better. ALSO, one of the Steam reviews mentions that this is missing the multiplayer component, but it is infact still there.

I thought this game was an rts, also it looks so bad on steam deck, like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and in windows the screen will not show you the map properly till either you pause or a solders walks over it