Toy Soldiers – 360 – Review

Attack and defend – the two
basics of what makes up common war strategies. Of the two, the defensive portion
usually leads the forefront in tower defense games, hence the title of the
genre. In the case of Toy Soldiers, it allows players to go on the offensive and
manually control units to gain a leg up on the enemies. This feature alone
proves to be one of the primary reasons why Toy Soldiers works on so many
levels.

Starting out Toy Soldiers,
Signal Studios, the developer, puts players through the wringer as they learn
the controls, advantages of using specific units in their toy chest and how to
masterfully place units to defend their toy chest. Along the way, players unlock
upgrades to their units such as the second upgrade to the mortar called the
Flying Pig – a mortar that has a longer firing arc, along with more strength and
health than the original unit. Progressing through the 12 levels provided,
players will encounter bosses of enormous size and power such as the Uber Tank
in Battle of the Ancre.

The
Zeppelin, one of the several boss fights

The single-player campaign is
decisively enthralling due to the constant flow of new enemy types introduced.
With one look at the level designs, such as Hill Cote 204’s concentration on
aerial combat while Zero Hour: 07:20’s focus on stellar tank combat, it’s easy
to see why Toy Soldiers is ever-entertaining. The levels are difficult and
challenging, while all the while are also wonderfully rewarding. After taking
down the feared Zeppelin, players should see what Toy Soldiers has to offer – a
masterfully crafted single-player mode.

Taking control of whippet
tanks, bomber planes, fighter planes and other vehicles permits players the
ability to explore the intelligently designed maps. Maps such as Langemarck
(1917) are intricately put together with destructible buildings, enemy mortars
and Howitzers and much more. Driving and flying about these maps are essential
to eliminate the enemy’s placed units to free up spots to place your own units
on their vacated spots. The controls of the drivable units are all different
with each one having their specialty power such as the whippet tank having
poison gas and the bomber plane being able to regenerate bombs to drop on enemy
encampments.

Look to
the skies!

One of the driving factors of
why Toy Soldiers is such a fantastic game is that the title challenges players
to put on their thinking caps. Whether asking players to take to the skies to
dog fight enemy planes or go mono e mono with enemy tanks, Toy Soldiers is much
more fast-paced than originally anticipated and could be sped up by pressing X
to hurry along enemy reinforcements. If players aren’t hurried to finish the
maps, then perhaps the attention spent to leaderboards and stat-tracking will
encourage them to complete the levels with haste. Upon completing each level,
the player will be graded on their performance while also receiving a breakdown
of how often they used units, the kill count, the multiplier count and dozens of
other stats.

If players are having an easy
time playing through Toy Soldiers – which I highly doubt will happen – they can
always crank up the difficulty and play through Elite Mode. In Elite Mode,
players must manually control every unit on the map rather than have a computer
AI aid in the defense of the toy chest. At the tail end of the single-player
mode, the game throws hordes of enemies at the player to raid their toy chest,
so it’s hard to image players breezing through Elite Mode.

The multiplayer mode isn’t as
extravagant as the single-player in terms of depth, but it’s a serviceable
affair to keep players coming back for more. Players combat against one another
in effort to lower their opponent’s toy chest counter to zero. When in combat,
players can launch offensive assaults by pressing the Y button and selecting
which units they want to send forward. With a handful of maps to play on and
customizable settings, the multiplayer is a nice diversion; although at the time
of this writing, it was tremendously difficult to find matches against anyone.

By the end of the day, Toy
Soldiers is the best tower defense game on the Xbox Live Arcade.

Gameplay: 9.0
Manually driving tanks and
flying planes around the battlefield is the best asset of Toy Soldiers.

Graphics: 7.0
It was often charming to see
infantry trip over their feet or run around raising their guns in fear of the
whippet tank.

Sound: 5.5
Menu music is redundant and the
sound effects aren’t anything to write home about.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard

Concept: 8.0
Not too many developers are
experimenting with the tower defense genre at this grand of a scale.

Multiplayer: 7.5
When pitted against a worthy
opponent, the multiplayer matches are highly competitive and entertaining.

Overall: 8.0
Toy Soldiers is a brilliant way
to kick start Microsoft’s concentration on Xbox Live Arcade titles for the month
of March. Signal Studios deserve a pat on the back for creating a unique tower
defense title that sets itself apart from the rest of the pack.