Army Men: Sarge's War

Plot

The game begins with an attack on Greentown by the Tan army and Sarge battling through the war-torn city to save it. After the battle, Sarge is informed by Colonel Grimm that the Tan Army has surrendered and that there will be a peace ceremony later that night, but that a rogue Tan division - Operation "Vengeance" - led by Lord Malice has stolen some infantry molds and can now build an army. Sarge's mission is to find and capture Malice, recover the stolen molds, and locate a missing recon squad that hadn't returned from their mission.

Sarge arrives in the area (a beach) and battles his way to the Tan portal. There, he discovers plans indicating that Malice has placed a bomb at the peace ceremony, hidden in the Peace Statue. Sarge charges through the portal to stop the ceremony, but he is too late - as the bomb goes off, Plastro, Colonel Grimm, the Heroes and the Green and Tan armies are annihilated. Enraged at the death of his squad,Sarge then sets out to kill Malice and avenge the Heroes.

He battles his way through the remains of Greentown to another Tan portal. Upon proceeding through the portal, he finds himself in Malice's artillery base. Sarge destroys all the artillery and discovers a plastic well mine that Malice is using to build his army. Sarge floods the mine, rendering it nearly useless. He then travels across the desert to Malice's castle. Malice is using the castle as a communication center for his air and ground forces, as well as a prison base for some of the Green army's finest men. Sarge penetrates the castle's defenses, frees the prisoners and destroys the communications tower. Discovering a passage from the castle to a kitchen in the Real World, Sarge flashes back to a time when he was in a similar kitchen, in a squad led by Major Gooding. During an exfiltration mission, Gooding and his squad were ambushed by Tan forces. During the ambush, Sarge called in an air strike and found Gooding's arm near the sink, leading him to the conclusion that Gooding was dead. (Unknown to Sarge, Gooding was in the sink, trying to call for help). As Sarge takes off in the helicopter, the flashback ends, and Sarge moves forth.

At the end of the game, Sarge finally reaches Lord Malice's headquarters, where he battles Malice himself. After defeating and fatally wounding Malice, Sarge asks him why he killed the Greens and Tans in Greentown. Malice reveals that it was simply to make Sarge suffer. Sarge removes Malice's face mask and discovers that he was actually Major Gooding, who was accidentally left for dead all those years ago. Eventually, the Tan found him and changed him into the Lord Malice he is now. At the end of the scene, Sarge is seen walking out, saying that war makes ultimately no sense.

The closing animation reveals storage tubes inscribed with the names of the deceased soldiers from the Greentown attack, hinting that Col. Grimm and the Heroes, along with Vikki, may not have died, and perhaps Malice had simply killed copies of them in order to play on Sarge's emotions - an action that ultimately was Lord Malice's undoing. According to the strongest rumor, the storage tubes might have been metal coffins to sum up the story.

The events described at the end of Sarge's War occur during the beginning of Army Men II, making the assumption that both games have a relation and explaining the lack of iconic characters.

Reception

The game was generally rated as average or below average. Improvements on previous games included a new lock on feature as well as the ability to blow off enemy limbs. Most reviews also said that the darker appearance was nice. Drawbacks included sub-par graphics, repetitive gameplay and poor enemy AI.

GameRankings rated Sarge's War 5 out of 10, GameSpot gave it 5.1 out of 10, and Game Informer rated it 5 out of 10.