Those of you who were hoping that 3DO would bring the troubled Army Men series back to the good old days of the original need not torture yourselves with yet another poorly executed game. Maybe I was caught off guard by the arcade shooter style gameplay but I was at least expecting semi-free roaming environments and elements of strategy. Anyway, if you really want to bother reading on further than be my guest but if you'd rather not read the entire review for a verdict then take these words to the bank: don't buy this game!

Gameplay
Oh boy, where to begin? It's an arcade style shooter to be sure but it puzzles me as to why 3DO decided to go with fast, linear shooter as opposed to a tactical strategy or some happy medium. The problem with the game is that everything is executed poorly and there are no outstanding qualities that can be found anywhere.

In this installment of the Army Men series, the Green and Tan army's are as usual, still fighting it out. But the Green Army has a new secret weapon, a genetically enhanced soldier with super-human capabilities that could turn the tide of the war. You control this green zombie of a soldier throughout 16 explosive! (yeah right) missions on "rails". To give you an idea of the style of gameplay, it is part Crash Bandicoot linear levels combined with the shooter elements of Axelay. Yeah it's a weird combination and when you begin playing, things just keep getting even more weird!

Once you begin a mission (if you could call it that), the camera constantly pushes you along. Nope, there is no stopping for a breather in this game. You go where the camera points you or else! That's funny because last time I heard, the player was supposed to be in control of the action right? Not only are you moving all the time but you also have little control over where you can aim. Depending on the camera angle, you can only aim in one particular direction at any time. The right analog stick is supposedly for aiming but I would hardly call it aiming at all. All it allows you to do is strafe left or right or just shoot straight ahead. I'm sorry but I think any shooting game, no matter how arcade oriented should at least give you more freedom than aiming in three directions. Oh I forgot you can aim backwards too but you won't be able to see what you're shooting at because the enemy hostiles will already be off the screen. What makes things even worse is that enemy soldiers can fire at you before you are even in range to return fire. Many times I found myself waiting for the camera to move me into range and a proper angle so I could actually hit something.

The number of weapons at your disposal is extremely limited with no more than five in total. There is the rifle, grenade launcher, bazooka, flame-thrower and bio-strike. The game also focuses on power-ups to improve your attack capability and this is about the only half ways interesting part of playing. Each weapon has six upgrade levels, which can be upgraded by touching the cycling icons of the weapons scattered throughout the levels. This isn't such a bad idea but once you've grabbed a weapon there is no way to switch to another one unless you hit another power-up! That is a serious gameplay flaw, which I have no idea how it could have passed as being intentional. Most of the weapons are very limited in their effectiveness except for the rifle. But good luck trying to keep it because as soon as you run through the wrong upgrade once, bam you loose your weapon of choice. It is one of the more frustrating aspects of the game and removes what little fun it may have had.

Yet another very strange thing is that all the projectiles move very slowly. You can see bullets coming at you for several seconds before they reach you. Part of surviving is dodging the endless volleys of bullets coming at you while trying as best you can to aim and hopefully shoot a few Tan soldiers. And the straw that broke the camels back? Glitches. You'll often find yourself being squeezed up against a rock or hill if you don't run ahead of the chasing camera. But it's nice that 3DO addressed the issue by allowing the camera to "back up" so you can try and escape. Green Rogue's fundamental gameplay mechanics are seriously flawed and eliminate any fun that this game could possibly have had. In fact, I can't imagine anyone who could actually have fun playing this game.

Graphics
Compared to the other Army Men games, this is the only aspect of Green Rogue that is actually an improvement. But compare it to any other decent PS2 game and it is nothing special at all. The levels have bland looking textures for the most part and the animation is weak. Omega Soldier takes many little baby steps when he runs around and looks like a sissy. The weapon effects are ok and cause big explosions that look very similar and unrealistic. Everything has the same look and only the flame-thrower actually has good-looking fire effects. The other explosions just look like orange puffs of smoke.

Although the framerate is much improved over previous incarnations, it still is not totally smooth. On occasion there are skipping animation's and a little hint of slowdown when several explosions are going off but the game holds itself together well despite the many projectiles and enemies running around on screen.

Sound
It's typical Army Men stuff upgraded thanks to the PS2's powerful sound processor. The sound effects have a little more clarity and intensity behind them but do not sound all that different from the first Army Men game. The voice acting is quite laughable. The few things Omega Soldier does say during his quest sound pretty dumb because of his monotone. But it's not that bad. The funny voices may actually be a good thing because at least they will lighten the mood and speaking of mood, you will probably be in a bad one after playing Green Rogue for a while.

Value
A game that is fundamentally flawed in gameplay inherently has little replay value and this is very true for Green Rogue. I was honestly so frustrated with the controls and linear, boring and slow gameplay that I couldn't bring myself to complete the game.

Considering that Green Rogue has no competitive multiplayer mode suggests that this game was rushed because the multiplayer aspect has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Army Men games. There is a two player cooperative mode but the only difference that will bring is having two frustrated players instead of one.

If you've read this far then you already know well enough to stay as far away from this game as possible. Unless you like games that are painfully slow, glitchy, and force you to fight with the camera as well as your opponents, then don't even touch Green Rogue.