History VideoGame / ArmyMen

%%* MamaBear: A boss fight in ''Sarge's Heroes 2'' is against a giant spider called the Queen who attacked Vikki for killing all the other spiders she ran into.

* MamaBear: A boss fight in ''Sarge's Heroes 2'' is against a giant spider called the Queen who attacked Vikki for killing all the other spiders she ran into.

* AnAssKickingChristmas: The last two levels in Sarge's Heroes takes place in a living room with a gigantic Christmas tree in the background.
* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Sarge's Heroes 2 lets the player take control of Vikki in 3 missions.

** In the same game here is a mission where you can bust a handful of Grey soldiers out of prison cells. They are very prone to friendly fire and they have a tendency to set off alarms.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Hero Units in the RTS. They did more damage than their normal counterparts and can usually take more punishment than them, but the lack of healing meant that misusing them too much meant you were down a strong unit for the rest of a mission.
* BadassCrew: Bravo Company is apparently TheDreaded to the tan army. In ''Green Rogue,'' the mere information that Bravo is going to be out of action for several weeks recovering from surgery is enough for the tan to decide to ''launch an all out assault'' against green positions, reasoning that Bravo was literally the only thing that could have stopped them, anyways.

* BringMyBrownPants: Implied with Hoover in one cutscene:

* LanternJawOfJustice: Sarge. As ever, lampshaded in the Platform/PlayStation versions' cutscenes.

* LighterAndSofter: ''Sarge's Heroes'', sandwiched between the PC games, and the World War games.
** The games after ''Sarge's War'' has the plastic armies fight robots in ''Major Malfunction'' or Tans fighting against a shrunken little kid in ''Soldiers of Misfortune''.

* MamaBear: A boss fight in ''Sarge's Heroes 2'' was against a giant spider called the Queen who attacked Vikki for killing all the other spiders she ran into.

* MoreDakka: One of the fastest firing units in the series is the Space Valkyrie minigunner in ''Toys In Space''.
** The original games had the BAR as an upgrade to your default weapon, which at least doubled the firing rate. Meanwhile, the M60 (which [[MisidentifiedWeapons looks far more like a Bren]]) was the extra lead thrower in the ''Sarge's'' Heroes games.

** Army Men (PC, UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor)

** Army Men 3D (A ThirdPersonShooter remake of the first game for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation)

** Army Men: Sarge's Heroes (UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast, [=PlayStation=])
** Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 (N64, [=PlayStation=], UsefulNotes/PlayStation2)

** Army Men: Air Attack: Elite Operations (re-release of ''Air Attack 2'' for the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube)
** Army Men Advance (A top-down shooter for UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance)

** Army Men: Sarge's War ([=GameCube=], [=PlayStation=] 2, UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}}, PC)

** Army Men: Soldiers of Misfortune (UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, [=PlayStation=] 2)

Canonically unrelated to this series, ''[[http://store.steampowered.com/app/360940 The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare]]'' was released on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} as a multiplayer-only game giving a LighterAndSofter take on the idea of plastic men in warfare with maps ranging from a simple team deathmatch on a TabletopRPG board, CaptureTheFlag in an aquarium or even a game of soccer on a foosball table. The first three games (''Army Men'', ''Army Men II'' and ''Toys in Space'') as well as ''RTS'' can now be purchased at [[https://www.gog.com/game/army_men GOG.com]] and [[https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5794/Army_Men_Bundle/ Steam]].

* LanternJawOfJustice: Sarge. As ever, lampshaded in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation versions' cutscenes.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Objects in the real world take on a sense of scale and grandiose nature to three inch tall Army Men. One of the best examples is in ''Army Men RTS'' where ''Music/AlsoSprachZarathustra'' plays while Bravo Company looks on a black monolith…a vertically standing UsefulNotes/PlayStation2.

* GoodGunsBadGuns: Averted - every weapon fits its specific role rather than being one among several different weapons, so everybody uses the same guns. That M-16 Sarge swears by is also what arms the vast majority of the Tan soldiers he fights.

** Over half of the songs from the N64 version of ''Air Attack'' are tracks from ''[[VideoGame/BattleTanx BattleTanx: Global Assault]]''. Conveniently, both games are made by 3DO and came out within a month of each other.

** The opening speech in the PC and [=PS1=] version of Sarge's Heroes is an almost complete recreation of Patton's speech from [[Film/{{Patton}}the 1970 film]].

* AffablyEvil: General Plastro, he may be the bad guy, [[AtLeastIAdmitIt but at least he's honest enough to admit it]]. (Though this is mostly PlayedForLaughs)

'''Tan Soldier:''' Colonel Grimm and Sarge have escaped -\\

** The opening speech in the PC and [=PS1=] version of Sarge's Heroes is an almost complete recreation of Patton's speech from the 1970 film.

* RecycledSoundtrack: The first ''Air Attack'' reuses multiple action themes from ''Uprising: Join or Die''.

* BareYourMidriff: Vikki does this with her outfit in all her game appearances.

%%* AcePilot: Captain William Blade.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* GoodGunsBadGuns: Averted - every weapon fits its specific role rather than being one among several different weapons, so everybody uses the same guns. That M16 Sarge swears by is also what arms the vast majority of the Tan soldiers he fights.

** The opening speech in the PC and [=PS1=] version of Sarge's Heroes is an almost complete recreation of Patton's speech from the 1970 film

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: The characters from ''Air Attack'' are not shown to be present when Lord Malice’s KillEmAll plan is engaged]] in ''Sarge’s War''.

* KillEmAll: ''Sarge's War''. [[spoiler:Every major character in the series except for Sarge himself ([[WhatHappenedToTheMouse and the ''Air Attack'' characters]]) is dead by the end of the game. However, it is implied that Lord Malice either re-built the characters and had the clones waiting in life pods at the end, or actually kidnapped them before hand and replaced them with clones purely for Sarge's benefit to make him suffer, and had the actual characters themselves locked in stasis in the life pods.]]

** ''Portal Runner'' didn't use the ''Army Men'' name for a good reason, as it is a bizarre hybrid between ''Videogame/TombRaider'' and ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot'', starring [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Vikki]].

* TalkingToYourself: Creator/JimCummings voices just about every male in the Sarge's Heroes/Air Attack timeline.

** Portal Runner (An adventure game starring Vikki Grimm and Bridgette Bleu, for [=PlayStation=] 2)

* AbsoluteCleavage: Bombshell, Captain Blade's love interest in Air Attack 2, has her top unbuttoned almost all the way to her navel.

* AcePilot: Captain William Blade.

* GenreShift: The games undergo this as the series goes on:
** The PC versions are generally top down shooter / RTS hybrid with photorealistic pre-rendered visuals, while the [=PlayStation=] versions are polygonal rendered third person shooters.
** ''Final Front'' and ''Team Assault'' are (pretty jarringly) quasi-realistic tactical shooters where the soldiers can only take limited number of shots before dying.

** ''Green Rogue'' are a top-down ShootEmUp ala ''Videogame/IkariWarriors''

* HomosexualReproduction: In a sense, since the ‘Omega Soldier’ from ''Green Rogue'' was molded from plastic contributed by all six of the Bravo Company commandos, (all male) including Sarge. So this technically makes them his ‘fathers,’ so to speak.

** Army Men: Soldier of Misfortune (UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, [=PlayStation=] 2)

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Near the end of Sarge's Heroes, when Plastro and a few tan soldiers have Sarge at their mercy, he is able to knock the tans (save for Plastro) off the present they are standing on by kicking a block at them. Plastro actually congratulates Sarge on his cleverness.

* ActionizedSequel: Army Men was a real time tactics shooter in an isometric view, that often saw you having to plan your next move carefully, as some areas were so fraught with enemy soldiers venturing into them would be suicide. The next game lessened the need for this, as little things, like having to account for soldiers hearing incoming mortars was removed, and rarely was it not beneficial to clear a map of enemies. Before long, the series shifted into a 3rd person shooter.

* ActionizedSequel: Army Men was a real time tactics shooter in an isometric view, that often saw you having to plan your next move carefully, as some areas were so fraught with enemy soldiers venturing into them would be suicide. The next game lessened the need for this, as little things, like having to account for soliders hearing incoming mortars was removed, and rarely was it not beneficial to clear a map of enemies. Before long, the series shifted into a 3rd person shooter.

* ActionizedSequel: Army Men was a real time tactics shooter in an isometric view, that often saw you having to plan your next move carefully, as some areas were so frought with enemy soliders venturing into them would be sucide. The next game lessened the need for this, as little things, like having to account for soliders hearing incoming mortars was removed, and rarely was it not benifical to clear a map of enemies. Before long, the series shifted into a 3rd person shooter.

** The PC versions are generally top down shooter / RTS hybrid with photorealistic pre-rendered visuals, while the [=PlayStation=] versions are polygonally rendered third person shooters.

* TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain: Played realistically (for plastic anyways) in the ''RTS'', Colonel Blintz received a [[BodyHorror disfiguring]] head wound and it resulted in his FaceHeelTurn to Tan. Seargent Hawk even says he literally "lost his mind".

More recently, though canonically unrelated to this series, ''[[http://store.steampowered.com/app/360940 The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare]]'' was released on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} as a multiplayer-only game giving a LighterAndSofter take on the idea of plastic men in warfare with maps ranging from a simple team deathmatch on a TabletopRPG board, CaptureTheFlag in an aquarium or even a game of soccer on a foosball table. The first three games (''Army Men'', ''Army Men II'' and ''Toys in Space'') as well as ''RTS'' can now be purchased at [[https://www.gog.com/game/army_men GOG.com]] and [[https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5794/Army_Men_Bundle/ Steam]].