Army Men: Soldiers of Misfortune for Wii Reviews & Ratings by IGN

Usually, I save my summation of a game for my review's Closing Comments. Today, I will forgo that longstanding IGN tradition -- Army Men: Soldiers of Misfortune sucks. It doesn't deserve your time, money, or attention.



To summarize: do not buy this game.



With installment after installment of Army Men games behind it, Soldiers of Misfortune bucks tradition and casts you as Timmy, a normal boy. Seems Timmy's toy army men have a mind of their own, and a war has broken out in the boy's house. Timmy shrinks to the size of his plastic figures, aligns himself with the green squadron, grabs his NERF-dart gun, and goes to war with the tannies. This battle is spread across several chapters that each come with five missions. All of them suck. You need to wander around and find a certain number of supply crates, you need to wander around and free your captured green allies, and so on.


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Now, I realize, or at least hope, that this title is targeted for wee videogame players and that I'm not part of the target demographic. Still, this game is bad. Controls boil down to shooting with B, moving with the control stick, and aiming with the Wiimote. None of that would be too bad except that Timmy moves as slow and sluggishly as a tank. His turn radius is ridiculous in both size and time it takes to complete. When you're getting shot at, getting out of the way is going to be a pain even when you use Z to strafe. Although there's a lot of action on the ground, Timmy's room is full of hockey sticks and other ladder-like structures to crawl up and access beds and the like. The problem is that getting (and staying) on these walkways is a chore because Timmy's movement is so wonky. I fell numerous times just trying to access tan baddies even though I knew exactly where I was trying to go.



When you're not getting blasted with a cheap shot from a tan dude who blends in with the lackluster visuals or struggling with basic movement, combat is just as frustrating in Soldiers of Misfortune. Timmy's dart gun has a pretty good range for a foam flinger, but the controls fail here as well. The Wiimote appears as crosshairs on the screen, but even if you put the icon right on the enemy you want to shoot at, you need to maneuver Timmy into the right position -- the darts often hit way off target.



Even when you're firing point blank at a tan target, there's not much to see or hear. You'll be blasting the tan opponent, he won't react, and eventually he'll throw his hands into the air as a signal of defeat. While all this is happening, there are basically no sound effects. There's a music track playing, but there are only super-quiet sound effects for your dart hitting, Timmy footfalls, and so on. The entire game is pretty much played in a library. It's like you're playing in a vacuum.

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