Army Men: Green Rogue (PS2) -  11. Split Ends
Channel: Louis B
Date: 2018-08-29

The Army Men games have a reputation for being amongst the worst that Playstation 2 has to offer. Green Rogue is no exception to this rule. 

It is a shame I say this though as it is obvious what 3DO were going for: A modern take on Mercs, Ikari Warriors and (to a lessar extent) Total Carnage with updated 3D visuals to suit the hardware of the time. Sadly, the 3D visuals are exactly why Green Rogue falters. Where All three previously mentioned classics function perfectly on a technical level, Green Rogue falters even on the basics. It has a terrible frame-rate for one, but even aside from that, even worse looking visuals. It’s as plain as plain comes with basic looking greens and browns muddying the screen.

But does Army Men: Green Rogue play any better you might ask? Well, actually no, Green Rogue does not play well at all. I had already mentioned the performance problems, and these hamper the controls of this shooter tremendously. With the twin-stick design, it is hard to respond lightning fast to enemies firing at you when the frame-rate hovers in the lower twenties, and possibly even high teens in some circumstances. Your biggest enemy in Green Rogue is the camera. Green Rogue plays on-rails and the game’s perspective with gradually force you forward throughout its various levels. The feeling of being constantly on the move is irksome on its own, if only in that it is very easy to miss enemies because of this camera, or worse, miss mission critical power-ups, making the whole thing a lot tougher than it should be. 

What can be most bothersome however is getting stuck in the walls while the camera plods on, or being forced onto a branching path, of which Green Rogue does little to help the player with as you attempt to dodge the various projectiles buzzing past your ears. It does not help either that the weapons themselves lack much punch, with enemies sponging a good chunk of your attacks, and thanks to some poor collision detection, it can feel nigh on impossible to hit some enemies on the later levels featured throughout this computer game.

Perhaps what I find most disconcerting is how Green Rogue handles boss fights. There is no attempt made by the game to help the player figure out the attack patterns of the five, bigger, bad guys darted sporadically in the campaign. Normally it becomes a battle of attrition until either you, or the boss itself, falls to their death. The final boss in particular is the most heinous example of this as you can barely see your avatar as a speckle lost between everything else 3DO decide to throw your way.

A few years ago I had made the naïve attempt to make a no-death playthrough of Army Men Green Rogue’s story, unfortunately this series was never completed. Having wanted to finally get it over and done with (having promised it on more than a few occasions to my viewers in the past) I present my new run of this in full. 

A couple points first:

- While this playthrough is largely death-free, I do concede that is impossible to complete the final level without dying. The reasons why has already specified, but to keep a long story short, the last boss is a cheap POS.

- I played this run on Normal/Default settings. There is a hard mode but it truly is infuriating to play. There is a random nature to Green Rogue’s power-ups and ultimately I ended up becoming dependent on these because the game’s problems are exacerbated so much on this setting. 

- You folks are welcome to make your own run if you think you can do better, that is absolutely fine, but I have no desire to put myself (and my controllers) through that kind of struggle ever again.


As for everyone else, please do not play this game.


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A LEGAL NOTICE:
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Any copyrighted footage I use is covered under fair use laws, or more specifically those listed under Section 30(1) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1989 and under section 107 of US Copyright Act 1976. This video exists purely for the purpose of research and criticism. I do not make a profit from any uploaded content, nor do I intend to. Thank you for watching.