Toy Soldiers Review - Your Childhood Living Room Floor Battles Come to Life
Platform: Xbox 360Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: Shooter
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: 03/03/2010
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics in Toy soldiers are actually quite good for a Xbox Live Arcade game. There are really no gripes about the visual presentation. You can quickly view the entire battlefield with a bird"s eye view control and the camera can be rotated 360 degrees. However, the fixed camera views seemed a little lacking at times and often hid key aspects of the battles from view. The animations of little plastic men exploding into plastic chunks can be delightful and the presentation is good enough to keep you interested.
Game Play: 7/10
It"s a Tower Defense game. It would have been nice to see a little more ingenuity from such a solid premise. Perhaps it was time to remake the old Army Men games from the original Playstation. However, the game play is fairly solid. You can only choose from six individual units and this seems a little low. Unlike many tower defense type games, you have the option of taking over under-performing towers and picking off enemy soldiers yourself. In fact, on the hardest difficulty, this is your only option.
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Story: 8/10
It"s difficult to rate a game like this one"s story. It would be a lot like trying to apply a story to Asteroids. However, we also don"t want to give it a low rating simply because it is in a non-story driven genre. The battles are designed to emulate the hours you perhaps won"t admit you spent lining up rows of plastic army men and slapping them around. The presentation does a great deal for the story and, thus, really doesn"t require any character development or plot elements.
Music: 9/10
There really isn"t much music in the game. What really shines is the sound design. You can always hear the distant sounds of battle and the gun and cannon sounds are realistic. It"s also pretty cool to hear the battle cry of charging soldiers during their attack. In this case, it is difficult to say whether the addition of music would have simply detracted from the game play. It doesn"t really matter. The sound design is acceptable and that"s all that you can really ask for in a game of this type.
Replay Value: 9/10
If you ever played a Tower Defense game, you know very well how addictive they can be. You can expect to spend a weekend or two on this game. You will also like it as a boredom killer once in a while when you"re waiting for that next big game to come out. You can play through a few times to get to the hardest difficulty levels. However, best of luck with the hardest difficulty. It really is a killer.
Overall Rating: 8/10
Pretty solid title for an Xbox Arcade game. Sure, we would have liked to see a larger unit selection and a little better handled camera. However, it"s a great way to kill a few hours on a rainy afternoon. The graphics are great and recreate a bit of nostalgia for many younger gamers today. If you want some real plastic army men combat, you might want to take a look at the original Army Men series. However, if you are just looking for a fun and quick game, give Toy Soldiers a try.