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Everyone loves a trier. But there comes a time when determination alone will only get you so far. Just ask Sunderland in the Premiership this season. The Army Men games haven't been found wanting for effort either, with sequels being pumped out regularly despite the law of diminishing returns kicking in some time ago. Quality just isn't a word you'd associate with the series, and the aptly titled Major Malfunction fails to halt the inevitable decline.

As ever, the Greens and the Tans are at war, but this time Private Anderson is going it alone on a mission to find the missing-in-action Sarge. What used to be a rudimentary strategy game is now a rudimentary third-person action game, as you assume control of Sarge and begin wiping out wave after wave of Tans, weird LEGO-style soldiers and other mechanised menaces.

Quite literally, that's all you do for the entire game's 30 missions, with little variation in either level design or structure. You blast through a load of toys, collect up to ten medals strategically placed throughout each level in order to earn bonus items, and return to base once the last medal is found.

The medals don't take a lot of work to find or collect either, despite the camera doing its best to make the heavy platforming element of the game as frustrating as possible. If you take the wrong path or fall too far it's back to the very beginning of the level. The controls are equally woolly, with the awkward auto-targeting system often failing to target the enemy you actually want to shoot first.

The only time the game comes to life is when you find upgrades mid-mission, allowing you to adapt your firepower by switching between normal fire and secondary fire. There are plenty of guns to choose from too, with every kind of rifle, machine-gun and specialist weapon catered for. The premise of warring plastic toy soldiers and tediously repetitive gameplay means Major Malfunction is aimed squarely at the little 'uns. If you haven't played an Army Men game before then the novelty of fighting among giant cereal boxes and other household items might last longer than five minutes.

1. Lots of weapons to choose from, and the upgrades during missions at least give you come choice as to how to complete objectives.

1. Your overall objective never changes from mission to mission. All you do is blast some toys and collect medals.
2. The camera behaves erratically when you're trying to navigate the game's frequent tight spaces and precision jumps.
3. The auto-targeting is equally erratic. You hold the Right trigger to lock on, but it often targets another enemy instead.
4. The game is far too easy, with the medals very rarely hidden away or placed in difficult-to-reach locations.

The done-to-death concept and boring missions don't do the game any favours - even at £20 it simply isn't worth your time.