Video Game / Team Buddies

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Team Buddies, where men are pill-people, women are pill-people, and there are no children in sight.

Team Buddies is a 2000 video game made for the PlayStation by Psygnosis, a top down shooter with light RTS elements. The main gameplay element is the collecting, stacking, and destroying of crates. Each team starts out at its base, has to run to the crate drop area, pick up a crate, run back and deposit it on its 2×2×2 stacking pad. Rinse, lather, and repeat. Different weapons, vehicles and team members are created through differing combinations of crates on different levels. For example, in the first world, you get your basic soldier (Infantry) and Commando.

In later worlds, you get ninjas, medics, and a whole range of other fun things. In the story mode, you have a number of different worlds, each with its own theme. The multiplayer mode has a few different game types: the basic Deathmatch, Domination and Capture the Flag, along with a unique mode called Bomball.

Tropes used in Team Buddies include:

• The Ace: Commando Buddies. They even wear an ace card on their foreheads to drive the point home further.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: In the Egyptian Dirtbox Desert levels, no less.
• Artificial Stupidity: Any Buddie not under your direct control will keep doing what you last told it to do, leading to situations where a Buddie will keep bringing crates back to base until he is killed.
  • It's also not a good idea to have them follow you in places with lava, as they hardly make an effort to bypass it safely.
• Bears Are Bad News: Grizzly Bears in the Droopy Wood levels & Polar Bears in Chilling Fields levels. They have a lot of health to bear with, and letting them attack you might even make them stun you due to the insane amount of damage they can dish out in a small amount of time.
• Big Bad: The Baddies. They are responsible for driving the Buddies to kill each other in order to carnage for a TV show. The end of this would involve destroying the Buddies' world.
• Camp Gay: The Medic Buddies in Single Player give off this vibe in the American version, due to them speaking with a slight lisp.
  Come over here, and you're Buddie bits, baby!
  Come on, boys! You can do better than this!
• Capture the Flag: Except replace the flags with either dogs, pigs, sheep, or penguins.
• Cluster F-Bomb: There is a tone of foul language in the game, even for PlayStation standards. Your teammates will say lots of colourful terms if you screw up or are just doing something normal:
  When accidentally shooting your own buddies: "Are you fuckin' mental?!"
  When commanding buddies to build a weapon: "Where's yer fuckin' tool?"
  • This was averted in the North American release, which removed all profanity for an E rating.
• Crate Expectations: One of the main gameplay elements. They must be stacked on the team Stacking Pad in a certain way in order to produce weapons, tanks, or more teammates.
• Combat Medic: Medic Buddies, who have Regenerating Health, and can heal any NPCs. Other than that, they're just as destructive as any other Buddie can be.
• Cutscene: At the beginning of each world, usually to introduce a new type of Buddie.
• Difficulty by Region: The American version of the game is slightly harder than the original European version.
• Enemy Chatter: Varies by the type of Buddie in Single Player, and varies by the color of the Buddie in Multiplayer. The latter also applies to Single Player in the European version with mostly different voices.
• Energy Weapon: Super Buddies, being based on Superman, have these as their ranged attack. Because of this, they can't pick up weapons or use vehicles.
• Escort Mission: Several throughout Single Player, most of them involving Dr. Madasalorrie.
• Floating Limbs: Buddies, Baddies, and even animals all have limbs like these.
• Flying Brick: Super Buddies have Eye Beam, flight (though regular Supers can only glide), can see through invisibility, and have the highest health of all buddies. However, they cannot equip weapons or operate vehicles.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The opening has Buddies getting their guns by kicking the crates. In game, you need to assemble parts of it on your base to craft your weapons.
• Gatling Good: Gatling Gun is available to create in World 2. It belongs to the heavy weapon type (2x2x1) and thus more powerful than the Shotgun (light weapon) or the Time Bomb (grenade).
• Goomba Stomp: Cyborg Buddies can flatten foes by jumping on them as if they were squashed by a tank.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The point of the secret Armageddon Barrel weapon. Its explosion is the biggest and deadliest one in the entire game, but using it requires a Buddie to put on that very barrel and then activate its countdown to make himself explode right out of his boots.
• Highly Visible Ninja: Ninja Buddies, who are among the fastest buddies in the game.
• Hit Points: When a Buddie runs out of these, their whole body explodes.
• Homing Projectile: 4-Pack Missile, Pocket Missile, and Power Orb Gun have their projectiles chasing your target. However, homing missiles move rather slow to compensate.
• Humongous Mecha: The Mech Walkers of World 8, as well as the Final Boss: The Mega Mech. These are all the biggest vehicles in the game.
• An Ice Person: Any Buddie with an Ice Gun or an Ice Grenade and their respective upgrade. If they manage to freeze a Buddie solid, they can deliver a One-Hit Kill with their punch.
• Invisibility: Stealth Buddies, who remain invisible as long as they don't get hit, don't use a weapon, don't touch water, or don't commandeer a vehicle. Any vehicle that's black & orange can also become invisible when not attacking. Super Buddies are the only buddies in the game that can see through this tactic.
• Jungle Japes: World 7: Rubber Jungle
• Katana Superiority: Ninja Buddies can use their katanas to slice apart stacked crates and destroy trees and buildings.
• Lightning Gun: The aptly named Lighting Gun and its upgrade, and the Ankh shoot continuous stream of electricity that hits a target and nearby objects. Meanwhile, the Lightning Grenade and its upgrade release burst of lightning bolt that strikes nearby objects.
• Literally Shattered Lives: A completely frozen Buddie will shatters into pieces if hit with a punch and instantly dies.
• Made of Explodium: Everything ends its life by blowing up. Buddies, animals, buildings, vehicles, trees, etc.
• Master of None: Infantry Buddies, who have no special abilities or punches that all of the other Buddies have. This is because they originally started out with no battle experience whatsoever, and are aiming to get there.
• Mighty Glacier: Cyborg Buddies. They have high health and their standard punches hit so hard that they can wreck tanks with their bare hands and can't be squashed by them, either. Their one flaw is that they're the slowest Buddie type in the game, so it can be a problem when trying to retreat from a swarm of enemies.
• Mission Control: Briefs you on objectives and secrets before the start of every Single Player mission.
• Ninja Looting: Someone else kills the guy or destroys the object, you can swoop in and grab the ammo/health before they can.
• One-Hit Kill: Any weapon that hits a frozen or inflated Buddie. Strangely, the latter can also be OHKO'd by simply touching a base or its flag.
• Palette Swap: All of the regular buddies are just different-colored versions of the opposing teams. All of the colors are: Blue, brown, green, orange, pink, purple, red, & yellow. By default, Player 1 is blue, Player 2 is Yellow, Player 3 is Orange, & Player 4 is green.
• Playing with Fire: Anyone that has a Fireball, Napalm Grenades, or a Flamethrower, foremost, though several upgraded weapons can also burn from constant damage. A Buddie killed off from a fiery weapon will violently explode into black charcoal.
• Power Glows: Upgraded Buddies have their body glowing. Some upgraded weapons, such as Bazooka, shoot glowing projectiles.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: Grenade-type weapons (except Thunder Grenade and, to a lesser extent, Dam Buster) rely on Splash Damage to make up for their low accuracy. They may be more powerful than the light weapons and faster to build than the heavy weapons, but their explosions may damage yourself and your teammates if you're not careful.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Trees, animals, structures, you name it. If it can move, it can die, and then rewards you with pickups and goodies afterwards.
• Run, Don't Walk: You run as a default, but you can hold the Circle button to move slower, possibly to make it easier to track escorts.
• See the Invisible: Stealth Buddies still cast shadow under themselves even when invisible,
• Serious Business: "Fizzy pop must flow!"
• Shifting Sand Land: World 3: Dirtbox Desert
• Shock and Awe: A few weapons. Cyborg Buddies can also impose this on enemies with their electrified punch attack, leaving them stunned after a couple seconds.
• Shoot the Medic First: As Medic Buddies have Regenerating Health, especially if they were built with a Super Crate, it's imperative to kill them first and kill them fast. Unusually for this trope, they are unable to heal their teammates, but they can still heal important NPCs.
• Shoryuken: The default attack of Commando Buddies.
• Shout-Out: The Cyborg Buddie introduction is a remake of the "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle" scene except it's only showing the outside of the saloon and the motorcycle the Cyborg takes turns out to be an ordinary bicycle.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: World 5: Chilling Fields. Its terrain is made of ice making it difficult for Buddies to stay in place for even a moment.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: A warning theme plays in the last 15 seconds of any Timed Mission.
• Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: The more crates required to build a weapon, the more powerful that weapon will likely be. Super Crate-built weapons add another layer to this.
• Soul Power: Ghost Mode, once its unlocked. After dying in a Deathmatch, you become a ghost. In order to become a regular Buddie again, you have to touch the boots of one that just recently.
• Spin Attack: A Super Buddie's punch attack spins enemies around for a second, leaving them helpless and likely to get spun again by another punch.
• Splash Damage: Explosive weapons have this property, especially grenades. Be aware that your weapon aren't Friendly Fireproof and can damage yourself as well.
• Spread Shot:
  • The upgraded version of Power Orb Gun shoots three bullets at once.
  • Scatter Bomb and Cluster Grenade release more bombs when thrown.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The grenade weapons invoke this the most.
• Tank Goodness: Comes in several different varieties of turrets and characteristics, such as 2-seaters, 3-seaters, and black-and-orange stealth tanks.
• True Sight: Super Buddies can see through Stealth Buddies' invisibility.
• Video Game Flight: Super Super Buddies (Superman-inspired Buddies after being built with a Super Crate.) can fly indefinitely. Several aerial vehicles as well.
  • Not Quite Flight: Regular Super Buddies can only glide.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Unless they're important for a Single Player mission, nothing's stopping you from killing non-hostile animals like cats and dogs (if said those dogs aren't being used as suicidal bombs, that is).
  • Nothing's also stopping you from killing your own teammates, and is in fact recommended if you're trying to get a full team of upgraded buddies quickly.
• Video Game Stealing: A Stealth Buddie is fully capable of stealing ammo and even weapons from enemies by simply punching them up close.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Unlockable skins in Multiplayer. These include making all of the Buddies run around in their undies, making them undead zombies, putting them in black suits (Stealth Buddies even get Cool Shades with them), or turning them all into Baddies.
• Visual Pun: The Time Grenade weapon is an alarm clock that explodes.