Sarge Hawk and Bravo Company destroyed a portal at a real world dinner party while a seductive Blue spy watched from afar, admiring Sarge.
After returning to the Plastic World, Grimm informs Sarge and Vikki about the anti-plastrification serum and the threat it represents to the Green Nation. Sarge and Vikki are sent to destroy a freighter train containing the serum and the portal the Tans use to transport it. They succeed, so Sarge and Vikki part ways, Sarge going to the Freezer while Vikki goes to the Graveyard. In the freezer, Sarge manages to destroy the serum hidden inside the soda cans, and Vikki, with Hoover's help, manages to get to Dr. Madd, but instead of waiting for Sarge, she enters the Castle. Meanwhile, Sarge confronts one of the prisoners in the castle's dungeons...
Sarge's Heroes 2 picks up after the first game. The leader of the Tan Nation, General Plastro, has been missing ever since he fought Sergeant Hawk. Sarge has been busy blowing up the portals connecting the reduced-scale Plastic World to the "other world" on the Real World scale, the world of humans.
In this version of the game, that table seems to exist in a strange painting. This is the first difference I noticed about the Playstation 2 version & Nintendo 64: its strange effects. The backgrounds are blacked out, but the colors and shadows are high contrast giving everything a neon look. No matter what you're doing or what level you're at, these images of LSD are constantly appearing at you, making Army Men SH2 on PSX a slightly quirky experience unlike any other game, and even its other N64 and PS2 ports. This is made stranger by a soundtrack that seems to be lifted from the series' more upbeat remixes.
In addition to guarding the portals that allow the Army Men to teleport to the real world, Sarge wants to uncover the details behind Bleu's plan to revive Plastro, before the Tans can use it to their advantage. It's basically the same third-person shooter from the last Sarge's Heroes, which we game fans love. There are many traditional weapons to use such as sniper rifles, grenade launchers, bazookas, mortars and the like. The Sergeant and his friends go through places like a refrigerator or the kitchen table, while destroying small squads of Tan Army Men and achieving objectives ranging from protecting a teammate, rescuing someone or simple search and destroy. As each small squad of Tan Army Men is destroyed, you are rewarded with full health before heading out on the next group of enemies. The system works pretty well until you die and realize you have to start the whole level from the beginning. Some of the levels can take almost half an hour to complete (unless you're an expert making a speedrun), and the lack of save points in the middle of the level can get frustrating (unless, like most nowadays, you're using an emulator). There are also several cooperative levels where a fellow Bravo Company Commando team up with you for the mission. Often your own teammate will shoot you repeatedly, or put themselves in constant danger, making the level much more difficult than it should be because you have to protect them.
The feel of the game is different, in general. Rather than try to adapt what exists on the other consoles (PS2 or N64) and pare it down for the limited Playstation hardware, like the original Sarge's Heroes did, the team on this port decided to put their own mark on a lot of things. The levels have been completely redesigned to be more compact, some weapons have been added, and more enemies have been added to the mix.
Sarge's Heroes 2 for PlayStation 2 is by far one of the best looking Army Men games to date. This PlayStation 1 version is almost totally different, but although it is lower quality for the obvious reason of running on the PS1, the quality of the game, the models and the resolution of the textures have been greatly improved. The Army Men have a nice shiny look to them and there are some noteworthy effects like reflections and particles that are used quite liberally. The explotions also look particularly good. Even so, the repetitive enemies age the experience quickly and the not-so-powerful bosses fail to spice up the game. In general, the graphics in Sarge's Heroes 2 are the result of an old game engine on an old console, only with graphic improvements.
Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 is some of the best the series has to offer. If you've enjoyed Army Men games in the past, Sarge's Heroes 2 is more of the same. The gameplay is a bit frustrating as always and there are a lot of bugs that haven't been fixed. But anyway, for those who haven't found previous iterations of the series disappointing, they won't change their minds with this latest installment.
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