Player Preview - The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare

Title: The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare
Developer: Virtual Basement
Release Date: 9/DEC/2015

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1RJEfA2
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1IL31xI

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the multiplayer third person shooter, The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare, developed by Virtual Basement who helped out Wild Card Develop Ark: Survival Evolved. Plastic Warfare has you playing as toy soldiers from the green and tan opposing factions, fighting it out on school desks, on a birthday cake and even in the freezer.

As a soldier of both the green and tan factions you have multiple different weapons available with no class system or load out restrictions in place. These weapons consist of an assault rifle, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher and finally a flame thrower all available to you on your quick bar. Obviously there are a couple of weapons like the rocket launcher and sniper rifle that would be overpowered in the right hands if they had a lot of ammo to use so instead Plastic Warfare limits these weapons with the rocket launcher only having 1 shot and the sniper rifle only having 6 shots before they go on cool down, the cool down of which will probably last longer then you will survive in the game. The same kind of cool down system applies to grenades, avoiding any kind of grenade spam however the grenade and the rocket launcher both are almost always used first after respawning before players fall back to the other weapons. The actual gunplay of the different weapons is fairly average heavily leaning on the arcade style of shooting with no real impact or force behind them however it’s adequate enough to still be fun especially when you consider the game to be more of a party game third person shooter then something that tries to be super realistic.

As for your soldiers movement there are a couple of interesting mechanics implemented all of which are tied to your stamina bar or what is more of a battery level for this game that can be seen at the bottom left of the screen next to your health. Performing any kind of movement except just walking will eat into your battery level. Depleting your battery won’t make you unable to jump, jog or dodge rather it will prevent you from being able to sprint, something that makes it extremely hard for your enemies to hit you as you speed across the map but will only last a couple of seconds when held down. To help you cross large expanses without dying or just to confuse your enemy during combat you can also dodge roll, making you almost un-hittable while in the action but makes it easy for the enemy to predict where you will end up for a finishing shotgun blast while you recover. Jumping in the game is an interesting point to take note of as well as while jumping you won’t be able to fire any of your weapons, something that does take some time to get used to. It is a little bit of a weird design decision that they’ve said was there for balance reasons, but they are currently working on reverting that decision to allow for jumping and shooting.

The games biggest feature and one that has a very good possibility of being expanded upon in the future is the amount of different game modes it has and while most of the game modes aren’t entirely unique, they are made unique via map design that shakes things up a bit. While there is your standard capture the flag mode, albeit underwater, there is also an alternative mode with 2 flags in the centre of the map surrounded by water and you have to board floating rubber ducks, successfully grab one of the flags and make it back safely to your base to score a point creating extremely tense moments as you try to hide on your rubber duck with the flag as you pass the enemies base hoping not to get detected. All the usual game modes that you expect from the shooter genre are available including team death match, free for all, king of the hill, capture and hold and capture the flag. There are a couple of unique game modes as well, namely this freezer map that has you trying to melt an ice cube in the middle of the map, dropping down a level and then trying to set your frozen dinosaur free. Unfortunately though, this is probably the worst mode in the game with the objectives almost pulling players apart to prevent conflict but the rest of the modes are pretty good with 10 different modes available to play, on 10 different maps. All the game modes are balanced around a 5v5 format which may seem small but on a majority of the maps especially ones like Kitchen Run and Toybox war you wouldn’t really want more players however it would have been nice to some larger maps and modes that allowed for say 10v10 games. They are currently looking into increasing player caps but significant changes may need to be made so that the game is still balanced.

Plastic Warfares art and sounds are fantastic with the environments being made up of various kids’ toys and other colourful props making the game extremely vibrant. Each level is incredibly unique too with very little to no asset re-use that makes each map exciting to play on and explore. From traveling on a moving train trying to capture points or traversing an underwater bridge in capture the flag, the game isn’t afraid to go a little crazy with their environment designs either. Looking outside of the playable area really shows the scale at which the toy soldiers are at compared to the “real world”, with a fish tank turning into a battlefield with a massive lounge room just outside. As for the games soundtrack it’s super up beat and extremely catchy, finding myself humming or tapping along with the music that just puts you in a good mood. It even includes remixes of happy birthday and jingle bells that will get stuck in your head. Some of the sounds for the weapons though could do with some work, specifically the sniper rifle, not so much the actual shooting of the weapon but being hit by it. You only really get a red flash instead of any audio ques that feels vacant when you silently die from a sniper half way across the room. The shotgun also lacks that powerful bang sound when firing, sounding more like it is an air powered shotgun or something of the sort. Hitting enemies with any of the weapons could have done with some sort of audio feedback as well to go along with the visual red x that pops up to make the gunplay just a little more satisfying.

Other features of the game include a server browser to find populated servers rather than relying on the games matchmaking system. You can also party up with friends so that you’re all guaranteed to play in the same game rather than trying to time when you all hit the join button, hoping to all get in the same game let alone the same team. There’s also a short storybook style tutorial to teach you all the mechanics and controls of the game most of which are re-bindable. Being a game developed for multiple platforms you have gamepad support, although why you would use one for a shooter I’m not quite sure. VOIP is also available but honestly with the game type not being super competitive it is very rare that you will ever use it. 

Altogether The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare is just a really good time that can really put you in a good mood with its upbeat aesthetic. The various maps and game modes provide an excellent amount of content and variety that the game doesn’t get too repetitive. The gunplay is a little lackluster but provided the party game type feel that Plastic Warfare exudes the gunplay didn’t need to be fantastic. If you’re looking for a good time with friends or just a relaxed and upbeat third person shooter taking place in the tiny world of toy soldiers then The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare is definitely worth a look.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for The Mean Green: Plastic Warfare. The game officially released on the 9^th of December for Steam and is currently available for $9.89 or you regional equivalent till the 16^th of December before reverting to its standard price of $14.99. The game will also be releasing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at a later date. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links above. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.