First release Army Men
1998 | Spin-offs Portal Runner | |
Composers Jason Tai (Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2)
Barry Blum: (Army Men 2, Sarge's Heroes, Toys in Space, Army Men 3D)
Brian Min: (Army Men: Air Tactics) Latest release Army Men: Mobile Ops
2010 | ||
Army Men is a series of video games developed by 3DO and Global Star Software. It is based on various conflicts between four kinds of plastic army men, distinguished by their color: the Green, the Tan, the Blue, and the Grey. Two other factions, the Red and the Orange, as well as a much smaller army, the Black, also contribute to the story. Two additional factions, the Galactic Army and the Alien Army, were introduced in Army Men: Toys in Space. The Army Men series was 3DO's most successful franchise.
Contents
End of 3DO
Army Men: RTS was the last Army Men game to be released by the 3DO Company before they filed for chapter eleven bankruptcy. The major franchises were auctioned off, and Army Men was purchased by Global Star Software (now known as 2K Play).
In 2004, Global Star published Sarge's War. The PS2 and Xbox versions were completed by some members of the original Sarge's War development team from 3DO. Global Star then released Army Men: Major Malfunction for the Xbox (as well as for the PlayStation 2 in limited regions), and planned a Nintendo DS version, which was not released. Army Men: Mobile Ops is currently the latest game in the series. Future installments are possible, but unlikely, due to the poor critical and commercial performance of Major Malfunction and Soldiers of Misfortune.
Criticism
While originally well-received, the sequential titles seemed to decline in quality due to amount of installments getting developed and released just months from each-other in a rushed state. The Army Men series during its later years was mostly infamous by several parts of the video game media, including X-Play and Seanbaby of EGM, for the frequency and declining quality of each new title. The Official UK PlayStation Magazine awarded six games in the series a score of 3/10 or less.