The Mean Greens came out around the same time that Star Wars Battlefront (2015) did and was completely eclipsed by the mound of frothing Star Wars fanboys.
If The Mean Greens had the PR team Super Wet Butt Farts did it would have had twice as many players and wouldn't have disappointed anyone like Stupid Weaboo Boy Friend did.
So now i'm stuck defending a great game that a sub-par game stole all the possible attention from.
But that won't stop me from singing praise for a game that is not only incredibly fun to play, but also well designed.
The Mean Greens Has Better maps than Star Wars Battelfront for a Quarter of the Price
The Mean Greens boasts 10 maps, all of which are designed with a perfect balance of complexity and conveyance. What this means is that even though there may be a million different paths to take around the map, you are still easily conveyed to areas where the fight is going on.
This allows for a perfect balance between thinking strategically through the map and its layout, and the reflex based fun that comes with always being in the fight in a multiplayer FPS.
There is somehow simultaneously a deep level of thought, and never a quiet moment; your brain is being torn away from the shooting to take in the environment and what it means to the game, but just gently enough to allow you to focus on your aim. And I think a game that can do that is an example of masterful craftsmanship.
Just compare these two screenshots to see what I mean of level design and how it affects the player.
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| image courtesy of The Mean Greens creators |
...and here is an example from EA's website; a screenshot of a video they host [which I recommend watching, if for nothing else but to emphasize the PR support this game got] showcasing Sticky Wart Balm Removal.
Notice the texture, the elevated areas with their cliffs, and the dips in the ground. This design makes you feel like you are fighting at a REAL location, NOT one specifically designed to have fun in, but to meet a level of realism and appeal to the fans of triple-A titles and Star Wars.
It isn't a playground made with good design in mind, but a frozen tundra that was agonizingly toiled over to make sure the snow looked real enough; complexity was sacrificed for pretty graphics and oversized maps.
Not to mention the elevations and vantage points are completely undermined by the jetpack! Why have harder to reach places to snipe from when they can just mega-jump to you with the assistance of a jetpack?
Player Abilities and Weapons Don't Have to be Fancy to be Fun
In The Mean Greens you get six weapons from the get-go: the M-16 Rifle, the Sniper Rifle, the Shotgun, the Bazooka, the Flamethrower, and some hand grenades. It's simple, they all serve a purpose, they are all useful in different circumstances.You can also roll. Since TMG was made to be played in 3rd person, you have a larger field of view, and with this comes the nifty and useful ability to roll forward, backward, and side to side. Think Darksouls rolling, but performed in a Call of Duty setting, sounds incredible, right? That's because it is.
Gameplay is simple and elegant, it complements the maps and brings the game to a level of perfection.
Sucking Whiny Bottle Flaps is imbalanced; it's maps are too simple while it's players have too much power over their movement and means of causing damage.
I mentioned the jetpack earlier. Albeit fun to propel yourself a hundred meters across the forest floor, it is conducive to repeat use, which makes it a liability in a fight and makes running seem incredibly slow and boring.
Incorporating a jetpack into a gunfight is rewarding at times, but it becomes something you depend on artificially to win a shootout; you don't really need to launch into the air to shoot the tip of a guys head, but once you are up there his whole body is in view making it an easier target.
Player ability includes the power to reduce vantage points to nothing more than annoyance. Because of this they will put this ability to the forefront of their strategies and use it no matter if it actually ensures success, or just makes them a big floating target in the air. It is a whimsical and fun mechanic, which adds to game feel but not gameplay.
Lastly in this point, Slapping White Boy Fannies has a plethora of weapons, multiple characters to play as, a handful of vehicles, power-ups, and "Star Cards", which have various effects over a wide range of things, all of which I will link to here [Weapons], here [Characters], here [Vehicles], and here [Star Cards].
These are assets that allow a wide range of style of play and strategies. My gripe here, though, is that everything is chosen and customized before a match [aside from the vehicles and playable characters], and organized into "load-outs". Which means that although you can customize your play style to an ultra fine degree, you are stuck in whatever "load-out" you customized until you die and can choose a different one.
A "load-out" restricts to playing in one defined style, instead of everyone having everything at their fingertips, like in The Mean Greens. Throw on some 'must need' Star Cards that fit to certain styles of play and now you've got a meta-game, where you must choose a certain load-out or you will be at a disadvantage.
A quick note on the vehicles and playable characters to bring this section to an end: vehicles get boring fast and playable characters are too strong to be fun in the first place.
Game Modes Make or Break the Game
In a game with guns, more isn't really the merrier. There is an objective in each match and in order to win you must achieve it. Adding more players to a team that needs to perform a specific task just makes it harder to organize and get that task done.An example of this is how, in The Mean Greens, there is the maximum of 10 players per match, five for each team.
In this way, when playing a game mode such as the Deep Freeze match, where each team has to melt out a dinosaur from an ice cube in the freezer using their Flamethrowers, every player has an appropriate amount of things to focus on, and the goal is too clear and simple to get in the way of teammates.
You will never be alone to encounter a small army of enemy soldiers around the corner. You will encounter one person and have a very personal and precise showdown. Or you and a few teammates will have a shoot-out with a handful of the enemy troops over an objective. But no matter what you do, it is always intense, concise, and nobody ever commits a party-foul.
Sad Winter Baby Freezing, on the other hand, has multiple versions of Team Deathmatch and Control the Points.
All of them are weighed down by the unbalanced game mechanics mentioned earlier, a whopping 40 people running around like idiots, and always devolve into uncoordinated free-for-all matches where the objective gets forgotten in the fray.
In order to make a fight feel more weighty they included more people per team. But this misses the point when so many game modes are directed towards objectives, and an every-man-for-themselves mentality is conveyed by the games design itself.
A match in a multiplayer setting gets its value from the team effort made to succeed and the fun each individual gets from participating, not from running and gunning with your fingers crossed and giving your teammates a hard time.
A Little Bit of Refined Content is Better Than A Lot of Poop
This last section was made just so I could mention that Slick Wienered Belly Foopa is notorious for the tons of content it promised, then unpromised, then didn't release, then released as purchasable DLC.
To conclude this mess of a review, the message I want to spread here is that it is better to focus on making one thing really well in your basement to an audience of none, than to promise a masterpiece to the world and fail completely.
The Mean Greens, I wish people had bought you instead.
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