Toy Soldiers (XBLA) Review

Posted by Natalie Shoemaker on 03.17.2010

Is Toy Soldiers just another tower defense game or does it add a little more to the mix?




Game: Toy Soldiers
Developer: Signal Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Players: 1 Player (2 Player Online or Local)
Genre: Shooter
Rated T for Teen

Set in World War I, Toy Soldiers takes a new angle on the tower defense genre and makes it fun for a wide audience by not relying heavily on strategic-based fighting. It’s as if a tower defense game and a first-person shooter had an affair and out of this secret tryst came Toy Soldiers. This game has all the action and entertainment a shooter can offer and the strategy-based thought of a tower defense. Together these two game elements don’t do anything new or innovative, but they come out making a fun title for the Arcade.

Toy Soldiers sets you on a steady learning curve, only granting the player access to a few defense turrets on your wheel and allowing for few upgrades. As the game progresses you will be able to unlock numerous weapons from nerve gas to anti-air missiles. During the start of the game players will have the ability to take control of defense gunners and take point in knocking down targets. There will also be options later on to fly aircraft and tanks as well, making for some fun dog fights and stand-offs between you and the computer.
Is Toy Soldiers just another tower defense game or does it break the mold?
The airplane controls aren’t as complex as something you’d see out of Battlefield Pacific, but they keep it simple making one stick for maneuvering and the other for aiming. Tanks are painfully slow, but will make players think wisely about taking-out enemy artillery rather than rushing in, guns blazing.

As the game progresses players will have to handle a juggling act of placing solid defense lines, upgrading for oncoming waves, repairing, and taking the offensive. The gradual introduction of all these elements of gameplay makes the game fun without getting boring. New weapons mean grander explosions of little plastic chunks flying about the battlefield.

After a few levels into the campaign there were some frame-rate issues when I took control of one of the gunners—a huge wave of cavalry and soldiers where rushing my toy house and all of a sudden the game started to seize for small instances. This problem is unfortunate, but not crippling to the experience. I was quite taken aback when I realize it had a small case of frame rate issues.



On top of the campaign mode there’s a multiplayer where you can choose to battle friends in your living room for some split-screen fun or hop on Live to wipe the kitchen floor with anonymous opponents. During testing, it was easy to find a match and fun to take the offensive and defensive strategies of sending waves of cavalry, tanks, and planes to decimate enemies, all while still having to hold your line of defense. All this added an entirely new aspect of the game and gives it a solid replay value.

Bottom line, Toy Soldiers is a fun must-have arcade game that players can sit down and play for hours or for about 10 minutes. It’s gauged toward an audience that may be looking for a quick match or who wants to hunker-down for the evening without stressing too much of their grey-matter. As a fan of tower defense games and first person shooters, I found this game to be an absolute delight and aside from the mild frame-rate disturbances this game is solid.

Toy Soldiers is currently available on the Xbox Live Market and will cost you 1200 Microsoft points.

Graphics	8.0	For an arcade title the graphics were detailed, which may have been a major cause to some minor frame-rate issues
Gameplay	7.0	Gameplay started out a little too easy, which made me wonder if there was a challenge to be had in this game.
Sound	8.0	Sounds of the early 1900s with surround the player and may also bring up some Bioshock nostalgia.
Lasting Appeal	8.0	This game's replay value is certainly in its multiplayer, but I'm less than optimistic about how long its going to be until a match can't be found.
Fun Factor	8.0	This game keeps it like, quick, and entertaining.
Overall	8.0   [ Very Good ]