The latest in the series is Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes for the Nintendo 64. Similar to the Army Men 3D released on the PlayStation earlier this year (check out our review of it by clicking here), Sarge’s Heroes expands upon the idea of Sarge, our main hero, in an eternal battle against the evil tan army. This time the tan have been discovered a series of portals that lead to another dimension. There they have been extracting weapons of destruction for use in a huge assault against the main green base. Unless Sarge is able to stop them, all will be lost.

There were more than a few problems with Army Men 3D on the PlayStation, but overall it was a fairly solid game. One would think that then the next title would be an improvement upon the previous. That doesn’t seem to be happening in Sarge’s Heroes. In fact, there have been a few aspects where the game has become even worse! Oops!

It isn’t an uncommon occurrence to see poor visuals on the Nintendo 64’s selection of games. Near all of them suffer from poor frame rates, bland and repetitive textures and lots of fog. Not surprisingly, Sarge’s Heroes has fallen into the trap for all three of those faults. First of all, the frame rate can move along pretty well when there is one enemy character on the screen at once, but throw on three or four or a tank and it’ll start slowing down. Attempting to hide the frame rate troubles is the inclusion of fog in the background. While this is normal to see, it always looks like more than a simple environmental effect; it is obviously there to help keep the frame rate from dying down too much.

All of the levels are split into a series of objectives that have to be completed before moving onto the next one. Staring out with one or two objectives, later levels will become more complex by having the player have to make it through around four or five. There is a major quirk to this, though. Let us say that there happens to be three mission objectives in a particular mission and you are near the end of finishing the third objective. Suddenly, you’ve shot down by an enemy unit. Sarge’s Heroes won’t let you start at designated check points in the level, so, instead, you have to start all over at the beginning. This quickly becomes quite tedious and made me throw the controller on the ground more than once or twice. A mid-point checkpoint would have been extremely helpful.

3D action games that aren’t going for a cinematic approach usually stick the camera right above and behind the character to give the clearest perspective. Moving against this, Sarge’s Heroes has the camera start behind your character, but then will shift around in places where it seems you’re running in the direction of the camera. This poses some major problems when trying to aim at an enemy sniping away at you. Sure, holding still for a moment centers the camera back around you, but sometimes you don’t have that extra second to spare in the heat of the action.

The inclusion of multiplayer action is always a bonus, but the simple fact that the frame rate drops like a rock hinders the fun that can be found within it. Although, there is a more-than-satisfying feeling of whipping out a flame-thrower, igniting a close friend and watching him slowly melt toward a bitter end. Ah, yes, the feel of victory!