Army Men: Toys In Space

Most reviewers at the time were like "OMG it's so hard, easy feels like nightmare" but in reality all you have to do is adapt. AM:TiS is not like AM2, where you just stroll forward and murder everything without a second of though. All it takes is to master two things: - the side roll (it is dramatically improved in this game compared to AM1 or AM2 because it's much more responsive, thus, can be spammed and you can shoot while rolling; the enemy will almost never hit you). - the long range weapons. AI will often not react if attacked from far away leading to easy kills, making Mortar, Bazooka and Vulcan gun especially valuable in this version. I beat it on Hard without any trouble. My complaint would be that the game has somewhat worse controls than AM2 (turning with the WASD keys is somewhat clunky) and it's REALLY easy to get stuck, even when walking towards a wall. Tip: control it with a mouse. Using WASD, I was really frustrated (I beat AM2 using WASD only). Another complaint would be that the game is way too short. I beat the campaign around 8 hours on hard. It's worth it to buy it on promotion and play a couple hours, though - IMHO it's more fun than the overly easy AM2 or the annoying (due to crippled controls) AM1.

Army Men has always been a favorite series of mine, despite only playing one game - Army Men 2. That game and its concept hooked me so well, I was willing to play any game in the series. But as a kid, I never found another game to play. In fact, I don't remember how the hell I got ahold of Army Men 2 in the first place. So as an adult, I had to catch up. But having played Army Men 2, it's hard being happy with what is essentially a DLC package for it. In fact, having a mishmash of missions with no connection to each other whatsoever, Toys in Space seems more like a series of fan-made levels rather than the real deal. Which is a shame, since the premise to this game is very interesting. It seems aliens land on our Earth, and it's up to us to fight them. The game does continue the old boring tan army vs. green army conflict - no-one deems it wise to band together to fight a common foe, but adding aliens to the mix livens it up. The possibilities are endless, but without much of a plot, you don't get very much invested. I don't remember if Army Men 2 was very much different, but my adult mind can no longer enjoy running and gunning aimlessly. Plus, it doesn't help that the difficulty curve resembles a sine function. In your first mission you'll be given as much ammo and long-distance attacks as possible, while at the next you'll be faced by respawning enemies, land mines, air attacks and incredibly accurate infantry men. And a mission or two later, you'll be free to roam the map uninterrupted. You do get a few infantry men to aid you in your missions, but they're as useful as tying a brick to your leg. Oftentimes I'd ditch them and go out on my own. I survived longer that way. It doesn't help that their path selection seems to be "take the scenic route, and split up whenever possible". This game is simply a grind - an affair of saving every few meters of progress. And as an adult, I no longer enjoy such a game.

"Army Men: Toys in Space" is not a bad game, it's a disappointing follow-up to the excellent "Army Men II" but it's far from bad, it often mistaken for "Army Men III" (which is not), more like a mission pack for Army Man II, cause it's using the same engine, mechanics and gameplay, essentially reusing assets from the previous game with some improvments. despite it's flaws i love this game and still one of the better army men games. the game story is the usual war bitween the green army against the tan army, but when a UFO crashes in thier territory, the tan army general plasto wants to seeks the unknown aliens for thier technology to create advance weapons, the green army with the help of the alien ally named tina to stop them from succeeding. the gameplay is the same from Army Men II, however the squad machanics is much easier to control then it's predeccesor, i can finally stop fighting the controls and the finicky AI, more cool weapons and finally the first and only game in the series to go to outer space, the soundtrack is massive improvment of the previous games, combination of epic war themed music with 1950's sci-fi b-movie alien music and it works. it's also alot more difficult, the enemy can shoot you even in long range and you can lose you're progress in seconds, quick saves is always the best option. despite the cool concept about the army men vs alien invasion, it's excecution comes out out pretty flat and predictable. even the outlandish elements from army men II don't really blend very well in this game. it is sadly the weakest game in the classic isometric tactical-shooter series. but if you can overcome the game's difficulty, paper-thin plot and the old-school basic mission structure, it's still enjoyable and classic army men game to it's core, and my opinion better made game then the later army men games. this game is not for everybody, only recommanded for old-school gamers and Army Men fans.

If you are having mouse stuttering issues while playing this (or any of the other Army Men games) you need to set your mouse's polling rate to 125 hz. I have a Corsair mouse so I was able to do it in the iCue program. I assume other manufacturers will have similar options in their specific control programs. Its unbalanced and janky as all hell but I still love this game. Nothing like the pure chaos of setting up a 4 player match with the PC, 5000 Plastic each, Random Power ups, corpses spawn zombies, etc.