Toy Soldiers: Review and Competition

Tower Defense games tend to be a passive affair, leaving AI units to do their job upon being plonked down in the players only involvement in the game. Whilst providing easy to maintain gameplay, you cannot help but feel like the game is playing itself for you. Not very fun eh?

Toy Soldiers rips up the rulebook for this genre of games, instead opting to provide you with an interactive shooter hybrid which sees you take control of your tower replacements in the form of machine guns, mortars and vehicles such as tanks and planes. Rather than watching enemies get taken out by your structures and units, you can instead take control and do the damage yourself.

Set upon a series of dioramas based on the events of World War I, you are tasked with protecting your Toy Box from the onslaughts of enemy infantry, tanks and planes. As usual with Tower Defense games, each of these enemies has a weakness you can exploit, be it infantry susceptible to being toxically gassed, tanks slow and thus easily defeated by mortars or simply planes being quickly taken down by anti-air placements. As well as the various ‘normal’ offense, you encounter a selection of ‘bosses’. These over-exaggerated tanks or blimps or whatever provide a hilarious thrill as a huge Godzilla-esque tank comes rolling down the hall squashing your helpless troops. Whilst a little frustrating at times with their ridiculous health and power, they do provide a cheap laugh as you can’t help but remember the one toy you used to own that used to be massively out of proportion to the others. Yeah, you remember it now!

The game starts off very forgiving, with enemies limited in number and easily defendable objectives. However, fast forward to midway through the campaign and you start to feel a sense of overwhelming annoyance. With the limited ‘zoom out’ function only letting you see some of the map at a time, attempting to navigate the larger maps, defending multiple toy boxes and with limited defensive placements leaves you confused, frustrated and generally not a happy gamer. Losing your bearings in the middle of what can be a lengthy level is frustrating in most games, but as there are no checkpoints in this, the intensified upset is more damaging and I did at times turn the game off with little to no intention of attempting the level again. Whilst challenging gameplay is fun, for an arcade TD title without a mouse it’s best to keep these frustrations to a minimum, as opposed to the majority of the campaign.

The aforementioned lack of defensive placements (whereby you place mortars, machine gunners and anti-air among other things) is a mixed bag of exciting heart racing puzzle solving and frustrating nimble fingered favouritism. Whilst it force you to utilize the timeline showing the upcoming enemies, chopping and changing your defenses as needed, it confuses too easily. With many of the upgrades locked until later levels, chopping and changing only to realise you can’t upgrade your units is an annoyance, requiring time and money, all the while leaving your base defenseless. When the game requires key timing and resource management, you have to wonder whether more freedom in placing defenses would of been a better design idea, rather than fixed positions and thus a linear gaming experience.

Arguably Toy Soldiers greatest strength is in its authentic aesthetics and sound. The game is a beautiful looking game, boasting attractive scenery and design right down to the cogs on the tanks and physical gestures of the infantry. Even minute details like your mortars being reloaded or scenery able to be demolished adds even more depth to an already sophisticated game. Seeing every detail from a zoomed in perspective as well as observing the battlefield when zoomed out shows just how carefully every part of the game has been planned, with detail not lost regardless of range.

Multiplayer offers 5 maps for you and a friend (or random Xbox Live member) to contest. However, unlike the campaign, you each are defending and attacking in equal measure. Alongside a random spout of infantry you each are allocated, you can fund the offenses of cavalry, tanks and planes which will attack your enemy after a short ‘loading’ period, used to prevent the winning player from overwhelming constantly. However, the few maps, limited offensive options and lack of variety in modes leaves the multiplayer a fun activity but lacking much longevity.

Toy Soldiers boasts an innovative spin on the classic Tower Defense genre and signals the start of a great month for Xbox Live Arcade. With a lengthy and enjoyable campaign, a fun time wasting multiplayer and replayability in Campaign+ and Survival, this is one of the titles that will be held in high regard with the likes of Shadow Complex and Battlefield 1943.

4/5

[starreview tpl=16]

Win a copy of Toy Soldiers! (Now closed!)

So, do you want to get your hands on Toy Soldiers for XBLA? All you need to do is comment below and let us know your favourite childhood toy. We’ll pick a random winner on Monday 15th March. And the winner is… PATRICK! You’ll receive your code via email soon. Thankyou to all others who participated and be sure to look out for more giveaways from TheGamersHub.co.uk!

Short URL: http://thegamershub.net/?p=4875

Posted by Matthew Gildea on Mar 9 2010. Filed under Other, Reviews, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry