Toy Soldiers (XBLA) – Review – Xbox 360

By Travis Gardner (Editor - Co-Founder) on 03 March 2010 in Reviews, Xbox 360 with 316 Comments

Intro – Kicking off the XBLA Block Party is Toy Soldiers. Toy Soldiers at its core is a tower defence game, but doesn’t play like a game you’d expect from the genre. With so many tower defence games on the market, wouldn’t another one just be the same? Most of them provide the same gameplay experience, but Toy Soldiers is much different. In Toy Soldiers, you can actually take control of any unit on the battlefield.

Story – In Toy Soldiers, you take control of a toy battlefield set during WWI. The battlefield is essentially a miniature world set up in a box. Just like something from Toy Story, the soldiers leap into action in an epic miniature war. In campaign, you play British and German units in 24 intense, WWI inspired campaign levels.

Gameplay – The essential gameplay for Toy Soldiers is quite simple, but takes time to master. In each level, the goal is to protect your toy box (base) from enemy waves. If the score reaches zero, you lose and must restart. Each level is different as it depicts various battles from WWI. In front of the toy box are platforms where you can set up units. This is quite different from a typical tower defense game because in most, you can line up as many towers as you can fit on the map. In Toy Soldiers, however, you are quite limited. Starting each level, you are given some money to build a basic defensive line of units. Like any tower defense game, it’ll take some time to figure out a strategy and where you should place units on each map. Killing enemies will net you more money. At any point in the battle, you can take control of a unit. Doing so will give you a bonus for killing enemies and start a multiplier for even more money. Taking control is crucial to success in this game. The AI does a good job of playing on its own, but they only shoot when the enemy is close range. With you in control, you can see what’s ahead and start shooting before the enemy reaches your line of defense. Much like the grenade cam in COD, by holding the fire button you enter the shell cam which allows you to follow mortar rounds. This allows you to control the direction and speed of these mortar round. Between controlling these units, watching the battlefield, and created new units, it gets quite hectic watching everything at once. The units you can use are machine guns, mortars, chemical guns, howitzers anti air turrets, airplanes, tanks, and my personal favourite, a sniper tower. All the aiming and control is done with the left stick. For instance, when flying an airplane, you use the left stick to steer, and right stick to control the speed. In a machine gun, you use the left stick to rotate the turret. As a sniper, you use the left stick to look around the battlefield. This control scheme could take some time to get used to if you are quite familiar with using the right stick to aim in an FPS. Flying the plane can be a little difficult, but with time, it’s playable. Something quite useful is the tactical overhead view. I found myself using it a lot to see all my units at once, and quickly move around the map. At the end of each level, you unlock upgrades for your units. These upgrades of course allow your unit to do more damage, and shoot farther. Also, during each level, you will be given bonus objectives to complete such as destroy 5 enemy planes while flying the bi-plane.

Multiplayer – Of course, to make the game even better is multiplayer. Battle head to head with a friend in five multiplayer maps locally and on Xbox Live. Not sure how they get this number, but you can command 42 unique units. In terms of the units available, each side is equal. It basically comes down to who has the best tactical defense strategy.

Sound/Graphics – The battlefield is beautifully rendered to depict the WWI battles. Along the edges, there are cardboard cut outs to indicate boundaries. The Toy soldiers, units, and environment look great. In the far off distance, past the boundaries of the world, you will see objects from a desk such as a desk lamp. Full environment destruction such as sandbags, barbed wire fences, buildings. Soldiers and units blow up like you’d expect from toys; they break into many pieces. The lighting effects are amazing as well. The overall presentation of the game fits the WWI style nicely. There are old film effects and war posters throughout. Occasionally you will hear music. It fits the 1900′s war style perfectly. It makes me want to go and buy a soundtrack if there ever was one.

Overall – In the end, Toy Soldiers offers a unique tower defence experience for the XBLA. With 3 difficulty settings and a fourth, “Elite” being unlockable, there are plenty of options for the new, and experienced tower defense player. When you complete the main campaign, you will unlock an award for your avatar, as well as a new survival mode that is playable on some maps. In this mode, you fight off endless waves of enemy units until your limit is reached. The game does include boss battles and in my opinion they are tough; Intense, but tough. Eventually you will figure out a strategy, but just make sure to redirect the stronger units towards it if they aren’t already. Also, upgrades really help if you have the money. Before the games release, there was and still is available, an official Facebook game called Match Defense: Toy Soldiers. The gameplay is essentially a match three puzzle game. There is supposed to be some sort of connectivity between the two, but so far all I’ve seen is the ability to view the map, and scores on the xbox 360. For 1200 points, you might not think there is enough content included, but after playing it, you’d be a fool not to buy it.

Pros -intense WWI battles

-1v1 multiplayer; xbox live and splitscreen

-Plenty of units and upgrades

-Unlockable survival mode for endless gameplay

-Great art style and music

-Avatar awards

-Facebook Match Defense game connectivity

Cons -controls are sensitive and take some time to get used to, mostly the airplanes

-not so much a bad thing, but boss battles and the occasional level alone can be really tough

-loading screens can be a little lengthy

-limited placement of units

Score: 8/10