Portal Runner

Portal Runner
Developer(s)	The 3DO Company
Publisher(s)	The 3DO Company
Series	Army Men
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color
Release	PlayStation 2 NA: September 11, 2001 EU: October 19, 2001 Game Boy Color NA: September 11, 2001
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Portal Runner is a platform video game developed and published by The 3DO Company for PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Color.

Plot

Portal Runner is technically the third game in the Army Men: Sarge's Heroes subseries of the Army Men franchise. The story starts when General Plastro, the general of the Tan army, loosely based on general Douglas MacArthur was captured by the Green Army and locked away (During the events of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2). Brigitte Bleu observes this through a magic mirror and makes sinister plans to marry Sarge and get rid of Vikki Grimm, Colonel Grimm's daughter and Sarge's girlfriend. Brigitte decides that she is lonesome, and needs a king worthy of her magnificence, and says that Vikki is a treasure waiting to be buried.

As Vikki follows Sarge to his mission, she ends up in a giant outer space chessboard and then a candy store. Then Vikki has to fight off gingerbread men to continue her mission for a better story, as if the fact that gingerbread men were attacking her isn't good enough. Then, Vikki finds Sarge trapped in a castle by the gingerbread men and has to save him by using her arrow techniques to shoot down a plastic pig. After Vikki saves Sarge, he gets her into trouble by telling her father, Colonel Grimm, that she followed him on his mission. Vikki gets into an argument with her dad. He tells her that he doesn't want her in any danger and that she's grounded "Until further notice." She tries to say something else, but her father tells her to go home. She replies,"Some home - I live on an army base." As she walks back, a Green Army soldier gives her a package from an unknown person. Inside was a dinosaur egg and a letter. The letter said, "The story of your career awaits you. Follow the map and seek out the one called Rage. Tell no one, leave now." Sarge walks up to Vikki and tells her that her father's right about her being too adventurous for her own good. Vikki walks off in disgust, with Sarge commenting about how that was a good start and how he'll be buying plastic flowers for a week.

Vikki uses a camera to take all of her pictures on her trip. During her trip, in the Lost Caves, she was ambushed by Rage (a WarBot, an evil toy robot; WarBots first appeared in Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2), Brigitte's WarBot friend who will do whatever she says, and was forced to the prehistoric jungle toy world. That was also when she met a lion, who was also forced to the same world as Rage destroys the portal. Vikki decides to be friends with the lion, which she calls Leo and they both help each other on their great adventure.

After enduring magic pillars, a pyramid, and air lifts, they come upon a volcano with another portal. Once they step through, they end up in a medieval world. Vikki rescues a wizard named Merlin from death in a chessboard. Merlin explains that he made a magic mirror that could see anywhere for Brigitte, thinking she would appreciate his mind. He directs Vikki to another portal, guarded by a ghosty barrier, an evil tree, and a moat dragon. When they reach the portal, they're captured by Rage and Tan Soldiers who appear to be minions of Brigitte.

Brigitte had lured Sarge into the dollhouse where she lived and wanted to marry him. She and her henchmen found an space-alien themed toy set, which acted as a portal to an Outer Space World. Brigitte acquired a love gun from some Martians, who lived in the Space World in exchange for the secret of the portals; she used the gun on Sarge, and he instantly fell in love with her, murmuring,"I... wuv... you...". Brigitte visited Vikki, who was being held in a dungeon in Brigitte's Medieval Castle, and told her that Sarge and she are going to get married, and that Leo was going to be burned alive. Brigitte leaves her mirror for Vikki to let her watch "This magical occasion." As Vikki cries to herself, she's contacted by Merlin. He informs her that he left a few secrets in the mirror before handing it over. When Vikki asks about Sarge's situation, the wizard tells her only the kiss of his true love can apparently break the inducement somehow. Vikki asks him if he's kidding and he says that he's not. Meanwhile, in a toy store, Leo is being transported in a circus carriage, and is about to be burned in a microwave when he notices the bars are melting. He breaks out and travels to a portal that takes him back to the Medieval Castle.

After fighting off some ghosts, he and Vikki head to the Space World to stop the wedding. Once they acquire a stolen key from a Martian saucer, Vikki breaks into the room and kisses Sarge, breaking the trance on him. A voice tells all Martians to report for battle. Vikki tells Brigitte to call off the attack. She tries, but some monitors show they expanded the attack into all the other worlds. Brigitte yells at them to stop but a robotiic voice says that they "Come in peace." Sarge says that they don't look too peaceful to him, and goes with Leo to stop most of the aliens. Vikki heads to the Alien Brain room, where the Brain, a cyborgic-style creature resembling a Martian head on a robotic spider body, refuses to call off the attack.

After Vikki destroys the Brain, the attack stops. Sarge and Leo head on, with Leo holding Rage's third leg in his mouth. They meet up, as Merlin congratulates Vikki for stopping the attack, and they head back to the Plastic World. At the Lost Caves, three lion cubs run up to Leo. Sarge mutters, "Oh great, we've walked right into the lion's den." Showing that he wasn't guarding the Portals, but protecting his family, he stays. Vikki hugs him and Sarge pats him on the head. Back at the Green Army Base, Vikki apologizes to Colonel Grimm and says that her home is wherever he is, with her father thanking her.

The game ends with Brigitte sharing a cell with General Plastro, who says that before she gets any funny ideas, the top bunk is his and blows a raspberry. Bridgette yells out, "Noooooooo!"

Reception and controversy

Reception
Review scores Publication Score GBC PS2 AllGame N/A [1] EGM N/A 3.83/10[2] Game Informer N/A 4/10[3] GamePro N/A 2.3/5[4] Game Revolution N/A D[5] GameSpot N/A 6.7/10[6] GameSpy N/A 66%[7] GameZone N/A 7.5/10[8] IGN N/A 5.4/10[9] Nintendo Power [10] N/A OPM (US) N/A [11] X-Play N/A [12] Aggregate scores GameRankings 50%[13] 57%[14] Metacritic N/A 53/100[15]

The PlayStation 2 version received "mixed" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.^[15] The Game Boy Color version gave an earliest review from Nintendo Power, which gave it a score of two-and-a-half stars out of five, just nearly five months before the game was released.^[10]

The PS2 version gained notoriety when it was panned by GamePro, with a rating of 2.3 out of 5.^[4] GamePro was the first to review the game, saying that it "looks like a late-generation PlayStation title rather than a second-generation PS2 effort."^[4] Trip Hawkins, then-president of 3DO and publisher of Portal Runner, sent an angry email to John Rousseau, who was president of GamePro. The email was published on the internet in its entirety. In the email, Hawkins told Rousseau that Rousseau's customers were the advertisers, not the readers, and implied that the reviews should be written to keep the advertisers happy. Wrote Hawkins, "...there is something wrong with (the reviewer), not with Portal Runner. If you disagree with me, you do so at your own peril.... I should mention in passing that 3DO has been one of your largest advertisers. Effective immediately, we are going to have to cut that back."^[16]

References

External links

• Portal Runner (PlayStation 2) at MobyGames
• Portal Runner (Game Boy Color) at MobyGames