Microsoft’s ‘Block Party’ officially opened its doors on March 3rd with the arrival of Toy Soldiers, a heavily-stylised entry into the Tower Defence canon with a World War 1 theme and a significant twist. Clocking in at 1,200 space bucks and offering up a lengthy single-player campaign as well as competitive multiplayer, Signal Studios’ inaugural XBLA title is well worth the asking price, and hopefully a good omen for the rest of the promotional offerings.
Recalling famous moments from WWI with lavishly detailed, diorama-scale battle maps, Toy Soldiers core lies firmly within the established rules and gameplay mechanics of the genre. Players are tasked with placing selectable unit types in fixed locations and building up defences in anticipation of wave after wave of enemy soldiers, tanks and planes emanating from the opposition Toy Box, and other scattered points on the landscape. To survive is to win.
Drawing inspiration from real weaponry, most of the unit types will be instantly familiar in both appearance and function. Machine guns offer up middling protection against infantry and tanks; mortar cannons have a short range but wide area of splash damage; howitzers fire their payload over an incredible distance but lack short-range capability; gas cannons deal damage over time and slow enemy progress; and anti-aircraft guns serve their titular purpose.
As any Fieldrunners veteran will confirm, experimenting and finding the correct formula of units and placement on each battle field is most of the fun. Failure is required at higher levels, progress measured in waves, mistakes swiftly taken onboard. If you have OCD, this is the genre for you; the drive to succeed stems entirely from the need to keep a ‘clean house’, so to speak. Logic and methodical experimentation prevail.
And if that was everything it had to offer, Toy Soldiers would already be at the top of its class on XBLA, thanks to some careful difficulty balancing and engagingly stylish toybox presentation. However, the addition of player-controlled units adds another layer of complexity.
Taking a cue from the likes of South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defence Play, quickly tapping the A button allows full control of any tank, plane or emplaced weapon. Using this functionality to mow down opposition units is initially little more than a distraction, but higher levels of play quickly reveal it to be essential – the faster rates of fire and monetary bonuses becoming invaluable for upgrading existing emplacements, repairing or purchasing new weaponry
Gameplay on those fiendish later levels becomes a matter of frantically building your chosen layout of ordinance, jumping in the nearest vehicle to repel the current wave, repairing or upgrading units, rinsing and repeating. The key to its success is a matter of balance and forcing players into repeated risk/reward situations. Leaving a vehicle for more than 10 seconds causes it to implode and trigger a generous respawn counter, so is it better to continue to pummel those tanks coming over the horizon or quickly repair a machine gun on its last legs closer to base?
Multiplayer relies on the same cocktail of tension, but with the additional ability to trigger waves of units to launch at your opponent. Emplacement locations are key to success, and again the formula of build/control/repair features heavily. At its best, Toy Soldiers online is a delight, at its worst a hellish frustration, but never less than entertaining.
So it’s good then, but a lot of the appeal depends on your aptitude and patience for Tower Defence titles. However, even if you’re new to the genre, Toy Soldiers is well worth a trial download. Who knows, you might uncover a personal gem.
Professional enthusiast, videogame "journalist" and all-round spectacular sofa dweller. "
2 Comments
hey manny, downloaded this and i loved it, halfway through german missions, getting hard now. if your into strategy and WWI grab it, i think its a little gem, and one of my fave games i have bought from XBLA
8/10
Yeah, I saw you on the leaderboards! Unfortunately as my bloody cable connection at home is down I can’t post scores