Thread: Toy Soldiers Review

Because it's been sitting there nearly a week waiting to publish, and because I wrote it partly as a consumer alert regarding false advertising... And it isn't going to help anyone thinking about getting the game sitting in review-hell... I'll just post it here.

Not being an XBox player but rarely, I hadn't had any experience with this game on it's original platform. It was recently ported to the PC however where I saw it on steam for a very reasonable $7.50 price tag.

Wanting to play the game with friends I noted that in multiple places it mentioned multiplayer maps and needing a Windows Live account to play online. Ok. Great. I purchased three copies. Myself and two friends.

This is a game, first off, that is a "Windows Live" game. This means that you need to have a Windows Live or XBox Live profile in order to play it. In addition to your steam profile if you purchased it on steam. This is where my first tribulations began. I hadn't played a Windows Live game in quite some time so the game required a Live update prior to play. Unfortunately after the update it wanted me to quit the game in order to complete the install of Live. I attempted to do so but every time I tried to exit the game it merely brought me back to the Windows Live login screen. Ok... Task Manager away! I killed the process tree and restarted the game. Right back to the installer / can't exit game issue. Killed process (not process tree) and it continued with the Live installer and I was finally able to play the game.

Gameplay:

At it's heart, Toy Soldiers is a tower defense game. It's "shtick", if you will, is that it is a toy box full of... toy soldiers. You play on a game board that's a landscape in World War I France as the French against invading Germany. As in any toiwer defense, you face waves of enemies bent on getting through your defense that you buy through killing enemies. The enemies directly relate to money, which allow you to purchase different types of "towers". You strategically place these toiwers to best defend your "exit" area. In this case it's your "toy box". You get various different types of towers with which to effect your defenses. The first you get is a vickers machine gun. You eventually get access to upgrades to your towers which give them greater power and accuracy. Other towers include artillery, mortars, chemical weapons and one other that I have not yet unlocked (though I believe them to be anti-aircraft).

Where the game is a bit unique is that you can jump into the controls of your toiwers and man the guns yourself. In some cases this is a good thing. Howerver I've found that the computer generally handles the killing as well or better than you will so it's probably in your best interest to just let the computer handle the carnage itself. It is, though, quite satisfying to jump into a howitzer and lob some heavy artillery downrange and take out a number of infantry with a single shot. Later in the game you also see aircraft and I believe you get to hop into those as well.

There is also an issue with the camera. It is difficult to get a good view of the field at times. It's not a true free-camera system and it will occasionally shoot up to an angle that gives you a view of the ground in front of you instead of what you are wanting to see. Moving to the edges of the screen normally moves the camera around in most games and that is the case here as well. But it's not the edge of the screen. It's slightly BEFORE the edges of the screen. Moving all the way to the edge is ineffective. So you go to move the camera and you find that you have to jigger the mouse a bit to find that movement area.

Graphics:

The game has a unique look and feel to it. It strives for a realistic look, which still retains the look of a toy diorama. The Tsar Tank for instance looks large and menacing, however you can clearly see that it's a wind-up toy. The graphics, in this regard, are very good and very well done. There are a few caveats though. There is an odd flickering that occurs when I am playing where grassy areas continually change hue. It's a minor glitch, but annoying. On the Signal forums there are some complaints of poor performance and very low framerates but I did not see any of this in my play. The framerates were acceptable and the gameplay smooth. This may be due to the horsepower of my machine however. I don't have a lower end machine with which to test on so those that do have such a machine might want to take that into account if they consider purchasing the game.

Sound:

I am no expert on World War I weapons systems but I've heard a vickers fire before and it sounded reasonably close to the in-game weapon. All weapons sounded the way I would expect them to and I have no complaints in this area at all. The soundtrack at the beginning of the game is era appropriate and sets the mood quite nicely. I would say it is pretty well done in that regard.

Multiplayer:

Multiplayer tower defense games are few and far between. Sol Survivor comes to mind and it is co-op. This game says it has vs multiplayer, allowing your opponent to play the German side of things against you. I wouldn't know however because despite the steam page stating that multiplayer is in the game... IT IS NOT. There is no multiplayer at ALL. This isn't just a typo. The game IS multiplayer on the XBox 360. However it was just flat out left out of the PC port despite the advertising saying otherwise. Signal doesn't appear to much care either on their forums stating that they left it out due to technical difficulties but not going so far as to explain why advertising states that it is included in the game or, at the time of this writing, allowing for the possibility of refunds to those people that want them due to false advertising.

This is a shame because even though the game is reasonably good single player, it would be better multiplayer.

Conclusions

It's not the best tower defense game by any means. There are a number of them out there. In fact the field is getting pretty crowded. But it's one of the more unique, if short (6+ hours and maybe a couple more with the DLC). Despite it being a decent game when it's working correctly, it's various issues combined with it's lack of multiplayer despite advertising contradicting that, force me to NOT recommend this game to anyone but the most ardent tower defense fans. Not only this, but I would also recommend seriously scrutinizing any future Sigil products as their PC ports appear to be a bit sloppy, and their truthfulness in advertising leaves a lot to be desired.

Rating: 70 / 100

Test System:
Windows 7 Ultimate
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.2Ghz
24GB Ram
Nvidia GTX 570

Recommended
OS:Windows 7 (Service Pack 1)
Processor:2.0 GHz (Dual Core Recommended)
Memory:4 GB RAM
Graphics:2 GB Dedicated Graphics Card with Shader Model 3.0 or Higher**
DirectX®:9.0c