It must be nice being made of plastic and being only an inch and a half tall. The recipe of a green, rubbery material mixed with a complete lack of height has apparently spelled gaming immortality for the Army Men series. For as long as we can remember the series had been helmed by the ill-fated 3DO company, but since that publisher went the way of the dinosaur the property has been picked by Global Star Software. In this sequel, Major Malfunction is ruining the world of toys and it’s up to Anderson and company to take out the Major’s band of evil toys.



Gameplay

Rather than taking a creative approach to the classic Army Men gameplay formula as other past entries in the series have done (see Army Men: Air Attack or Army Men World War: Team Assault) Major Malfunction is a much more straightforward and run-of-the-mill style game. The story is standard fare, Major Malfunction has enlisted a group of bad toys that range from standard LEGO-esque baddies, to hulking robots with chain guns strapped to their arm. There’s a decent variety of enemies, but none of them go very far beyond the typical formula of either melee combat or projectiles. Aiding Private Anderson in his quest will be more than fifteen weapons, including flamethrowers, assault rifles and most things in between. You can also pickup upgrades for your weapons mid-mission, so your payload of armaments can change to fit the situation at least somewhat. It helps to provide some variety to the third-person action that Major Malfunction delivers, but still isn’t enough to make you forget that you’re essentially playing through the same scenarios over and over.

The mission structure doesn’t change all that much from the first mission to the last, most of the time Anderson is charged with taking out a ton of toy soldiers, collecting medals that are situated strategically throughout the level in order to earn bonus items. The camera frequently reveals these medals to the player, so it doesn’t take a lot of exploring to earn the maximum of ten. Once you’ve completed whatever objectives the current mission calls for, it’s time to collect the final medal - which magically appears out of thin air - letting you know that it’s time to head back to base…mission accomplished.

The stages are a bit different from Army Men games of the past in that they’re no longer outdoors and what little realism used to be in the games (at least as much as can be expected) has been completely sucked out by the constant reminder that you’re a toy fighting against other toys. Everything in the environment is giant sized even though the objects are nothing more than serial boxes and building blocks, again making it very clear that you’re nothing more than a one and a half inch tall plastic soldier.

Gameplay Controls:

One of Major Malfunction’s biggest problems is its controls which are hampered greatly by the roaming camera which has a mind of its own on several occasions. Whether it’s getting caught on objects in the environment or completely swinging through a wall, the camera can be difficult to manage to say the least. Precision jumping is also something that most will probably find very difficult. There are several times when a needed medal is placed atop a jumping equation which must be traversed to get the medal. The aiming mechanic is equally as daunting. What it entails is depressing the right trigger and then hitting the A button to fire at the target that you’ve just locked on to. But once you’ve locked on there’s no way to change targets other then taking the chance of releasing the trigger and depressing it again, which usually just locks on to the same target that you just had in your sights. Here’s a quick controller breakdown:


Left thumbstick – movement
Right thumbstick – manipulate camera if you can
D-pad – change weapons
Left trigger – crouch
Right trigger – lock-on
A button – fire weapon
B button – jump
X button – change between primary and secondary fire
Y button – action (context sensitive)

Overall Gameplay Impressions:

If you haven’t guessed it by now by feelings towards the gameplay of Army Men: Major Malfunction are lukewarm at their very best. The gameplay is the same handful of mundane moments repeated ad nausea, with no end in sight until you’ve played through all thirty missions. There are enough weapons to keep little tikes interested for a few hours, which for twenty bucks, probably isn’t that bad of a deal. As a standalone video game this Army Men installment falls much flatter than all the rest, and that’s talking about a series which has occasionally found itself below the line of mediocrity.



Graphics

The visuals are pretty standard for the series and from budget games in general. Major Malfunction doesn’t do anything that we haven’t seen before, aside from some anti-aliasing, which aids in the smoothness of the indoor settings. There are some finicky animations which happen when Major Anderson boards a helicopter or has any basic collision with objects in cut-scenes. The framerate stays consistent throughout, but that isn’t exactly a challenge when the most complicated graphical effect is some minor depth of field effects used when looking out over the “massive” kitchen environments.

Audio

What are these characters saying?! Thank god for subtitles or I’d be lost. It’s almost like they’re speaking in a combination Simspeak and some kind of derka derka style dialect. Maybe it’s standard for the series, but listening to the characters mumble inaudible sounds to one another seems like a huge waste of time. The music in Major Malfunction takes queues from other Army games, but takes a lighthearted tone to fit the subject matter.

There’s plenty to moan and groan about when it comes to Army Men: Major Malfunction, but the fact is that it’s just not much fun to play. The camera is a headache waiting to happen and the rest of the gameplay mechanics don’t fare much better. It’s a shame considering that this is a series that I actually used to somewhat enjoy playing. Bad graphics, boring levels, and poorly constructed environments don’t help in the fun factor either. Stay away from this one if you’re above the age of ten. If not then this may be worth fifteen bucks.

Rating: