Toy Soldiers (XBLA game)

[SuperJay]

For anyone interested in a cool tower-defense style arcade game, I recommend checking out Toy Soldiers. (Xbox 360 only, sadly.) I picked it up last week when it was on sale for $10, and I've gotten more hours of fun out of that 10 bucks than I did out of the $60 I spent on Halo: Reach.

The game concept is basically WWI battles fought with (you guessed it) toy soldiers. You play the British or German armies. I'm not usually one for tower defense games, but this one mixes up the formula a bit by allowing you to take control any emplacement (MG nest, mortar team, howitzer, AA gun, etc) at any time, and giving you different vehicles to drive (tanks) or fly (bi-plane fighters or bombers) so you can take a front-seat role in the battles rather than just building some towers and then watching passively.

You begin every battle mission with a certain amount of starting cash to build up your initial base defenses (like an RTS game), and as you destroy enemy troops and vehicles, you gain money to buy additional defenses or upgrade your current emplacements. You can also earn bonus cash multipliers by taking control of an emplacement or vehicle yourself and destroying enemy assets, which gives you an incentive to take an active role in the battle since doing so earns you more money.

Besides the campaign, there's also a Survival game mode and some multiplayer offerings - 1v1 battles that you can play in split-screen or via Xbox Live. After finishing the base campaign, you also get to play a "Campaign+" mode where you control the German forces and fight through modified versions of the campaign battles from their side.

All in all, I highly recommend it. The graphics are surprisingly detailed, the gameplay is fun and engaging, and the whole game is very polished. For $10 (on sale; $15 normally), you can't go wrong.

 

[Omega124]

If my dad wasn't so cheap and refuses to get Xbox live, I would buy it.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

OMG I WANT THAT, FREAKIN XBOX 360

 

[Communisto]

Great game! I have it too, ultra fun.

 

[SuperJay]

OMG I WANT THAT, FREAKIN XBOX 360

I know, right? This kind of game would sell like hotcakes on Steam or another online retail service; it's a shame they don't have a PC version. It'd also be a little easier to control with a mouse and keyboard, but overall I'm happy wth the control scheme for the 360. (Especially after discovering last night that I can hold left trigger to drastically accelerate my camera's movement around the battlefield. DURRR, only took two trips through the campaign to figure that out.)

Great game! I have it too, ultra fun.

Have you ever played the head-to-head multiplayer mode? I just hopped in a game for the first time last night, and got steamrolled almost instantly. Apparently all you need to do is spend your starting cash to attack with a wave of tanks and you insta-win.

 

[Communisto]

Have you ever played the head-to-head multiplayer mode? I just hopped in a game for the first time last night, and got steamrolled almost instantly. Apparently all you need to do is spend your starting cash to attack with a wave of tanks and you insta-win.

Hah, really? Whenever I play I usually dominate, try flying your plane into the enemy toy box, it counts as a ticker!

 

[SuperJay]

Yeah, I had no idea how the "managing your offense" part worked, since there's no analagous feature in the campaign missions where you just controlling your defense. I barely had a handful of Level 1 machine-guns and mortars down before I had like 7 Whippet tanks rolling into my base and nothing to stop them.

So how DO you dominate in those head-to-head matches? Do you just invest in offensive waves first? I only had $2000 to start, which means you either can build a few emplacements or maybe one wave of offensive troops.

 

[Communisto]

Yeah, I had no idea how the "managing your offense" part worked, since there's no analagous feature in the campaign missions where you just controlling your defense. I barely had a handful of Level 1 machine-guns and mortars down before I had like 7 Whippet tanks rolling into my base and nothing to stop them.

So how DO you dominate in those head-to-head matches? Do you just invest in offensive waves first? I only had $2000 to start, which means you either can build a few emplacements or maybe one wave of offensive troops.

Artillery and mortars are pretty key. Arty to knock out enemy improvements from a distance and third level mortars to bust up infantry and vehicles. Always be pressing the enemy with your controllable tanks and planes. Dont give him a second to breathe. When in doubt, fly a plane into his toy box banzai style.

 

[Maniacal]

Sounded neat, except for the whole XBLA part of it.

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