Army Men: Operation Green

The player fights the tan army men soldiers in the game.

The player controls a green army men soldier fighting by themselves against the tan army men in their territory.[2] The game tasks the player with completing objectives.[2][3] There are four different tasks the game assigns the player: search and rescue, search and destroy, delivery, and escort missions.[3] The search and rescue missions task players with finding an item or person on the map and then bringing them back to the player's base.[3] Search and destroy involves destroying a specified target to end the level.[3] Both delivery and escort require the player to protect an object, vehicle, or person and bring them safely to a specific area on the map.[3]

Army Men: Operation Green contains 15 levels that are set in 5 different climate environments.[3] Although the game has a top-down perspective, the player controls their green army men character like they would in a first-person shooter.[2] The player must fight through a mass of enemies using a variety of weapons to complete their objectives, and then move onto the next level.[3] The weapons include a standard handgun, bazooka, grenade, flamethrower, knife, and a minesweeper; the game allows players to cycle through weapons they have picked up with the "Select" button.[3] IGN's Craig Harris noted the gameplay's similarity to the Army Men's Game Boy Color games.[2] In order to save progress through the game's 15 levels, the game uses a password system instead of a normal save game system.[3]

3DO began development on Operation Green in April 2001.[4] Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell wrote that early previews of Operation Green had more in common with Commandos 2 than other titles in the Army Men series.[4] 3DO showed the first screenshots of Army Men: Operation Green and announced plans to release the title on October 10, 2001.[5][6] The game was slated to release "just before Christmas" in the United States according to IGN's Craig Harris.[5] Pocket Studios CEO Steve Illes predicted that the game would be a success.[4] The game was released in North America on December 3, 2001.[1]

Army Men: Operation Green received "mixed or average" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.[7] Although most critics felt that the game was an improvement over others in the Army Men series, criticism focused on its lackluster mission design, sluggish controls, and password save system.[2][3][8] IGN's Craig Harris called the game "relatively fun" despite the series's overall mediocre reputation, a sentiment shared by other reviewers.[2][8][9] CVG, however, felt that the game was let down by its sluggish controls and slow-moving pace.[8]

Reviewers were divided over the game's difficulty. GameZone's Patricia Wiley was unable to get past the second level of the game, feeling that Army Men: Operation Green was "too challenging", while IGN's Craig Harris called the game a "few hour romp" that could be completed too quickly and felt that the second half was too easy.[3][2] Harris noted that the levels needed "better designs" and that they were uneven in pacing.[2]

The password save system was dismissed and criticized by reviewers.[2][3][9] GameZone's Patricia Wiley called the password save system "an unfortunate feature".[3] IGN's Craig Harris felt that the password system exacerbated some of the larger levels' issues; the system does not work in the middle of levels.[2]

• Army Men: Operation Green at MobyGames