Army Men: RTS (GameCube)

Army Men: RTS on the GameCube can't help feeling like a relic. Indeed, by video game standards, its original 2002 release on the PC and PS2 is ancient history. The fact that Global Star has seen fit to resurrect the Army Men name, which is arguably the most notorious of 3DO's franchises leading up to its final days, makes this release feel almost creepy...like a posthumous performance by a recently deceased actor. What Army Men: RTS has to its advantage is that when it was released nearly three years ago, it was actually pretty good. It feels dated, yes, but a lot of the quality still stands up, and with strategy being a scarce commodity on the GameCube, it's hard to argue with the game's bargain-basement price tag.

Army Men: RTS follows the story of Sarge and his platoon of roughnecks as they creep behind enemy lines to take out Colonel Blintz, an ex-Green Army officer who suffered a disfiguring head wound during combat and has subsequently "gone Tan." The story loosely mirrors some of the plot points in Apocalypse Now, and you'll find plenty of references to other classic war movies throughout the game's 15 missions.

Army Men: RTS closely follows the conventions laid down by past real-time strategy games, and though it simplifies and streamlines a lot of it, Army Men rarely strays from old-timey RTS conventions. You'll start off each mission with a handful of troops and, depending on the circumstances, a bulldozer. The bulldozer can be used to build structures, such as barracks and garages that can then be used to build more troops and vehicles, respectively. To create an effective army, you'll need to build a resource depot to gather plastic and electricity, the core building blocks of all your units. Plastic can be harvested from items such as Frisbees, dog bowls, and toy robots, while electricity can be harvested from items such as batteries, walkie-talkies, and toasters. Resource management definitely plays a big part in successfully executing many of the missions, but not so much so that it overshadows the actual job at hand.

The mission objectives in the game's main campaign mode break no new ground for the genre, but Army Men: RTS hits the points it needs to. Some missions will charge you with tasks such as overrunning a Tan Army base or simply moving your troops from point A to point B. In one mission, you'll have to escort a village of funny-voiced Lego men to safety while also protecting them from the Tan Army. There's really nothing new here, but each mission is executed well enough to excuse any lack of innovation. And if the main campaign isn't enough for you, Army Men: RTS also includes a "great battles" mode, which puts you in one of eight large-scale base-building missions. Furthermore, there's a special operations mode that puts you in one of eight missions with very unique objectives. Sadly, there are no multiplayer modes in Army Men: RTS, though when you consider the limitations inherent in a split-screen multiplayer game, it's probably for the best.

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