Toy Soldiers Review

It’s the devastating war between Britain and Germany, World War 1 is being replicated with stunning realism with… wait a minute, these are toys? Fly toy biplanes, drive wind-up and go toy tanks and destroy the opposition’s men in what is one of the finest strategy-come-action games on Xbox, and it’s all part of House Party month.

Story

Think of this as World War I with your mum and dad’s (possibly gran/dad’s) toy collections replacing real weaponry. You’re faced with the challenge of defending your toy box from the opposition by means of force and utilising all the equipment at your disposal. Battles take place right over Europe as the German movement to capture and cease power continues to build up pace.

Gameplay

Right, storyline over now I get on to what really matters with regards to this game, and that’s all about the gameplay. First of all, this is one of those little unique twists on an old, tried and tested formula that we like so much here at Game Attic.

Although from appearance and your first introduction to the game, yes it looks remarkably similar in style to a standard Real-time-strategy game (place guns here, defend this position etc.), Toy Soldiers throws a spanner in the works by completely changing gameplay by allowing the player to control the placements and other assorted weaponry (such as tanks, planes) along the way.

What you effectively have here, is 2 games. Should you wish to leave your AI guys to it and would rather play commander from the sky, you can do so no problem. Doing so removes the soul from the game though as so much detail and attention has been paid to the design and workings of the weaponry, that it’s the source of most of the fun.

Along the way and as you progress further into the game, different weapons are available to be placed. You begin the game (normally) with a stable of cash that allows to take stock and sort yourself out with basic defences to stop the first advance from your enemy. With each kill (whether it be enemy placement, soldier, cavalry, tank, ‘choppers etc.) you get a cash reward that allows you to boost your defences by either upgrading or occupying another placement point dotted around your toy box.

In the later levels, you can leave your guys to defend your box on their own and you have to go beyond enemy lines in order to wipe out the enemies defences which are hampering your armies progression.

Enemies come in ‘waves’ which can be seen and ticked down at the top of the screen allowing you to prepare for the next onsalught. If you see planes a’coming, set up an anti-air turret immediately and such, up until the final enemy wave. Final waves sometimes conclude with a “boss battle”, which sees a standard piece of equipment jumbo-ised (it’s a word) and your task is to kill it dead, good luck as these things are BIG.

Graphics

The general presentation of the game can be altered by your own personal preferences. If you feel like going all old school, turn the film grain option to on and be absorbed into the dark ages of technology and development as the cavalry come charging towards you.

That – you may be glad to hear – is completely optional though. Other than the film grain this is a totally 2010 affair with beautifully detailed surroundings, well animated enemy attacks and deep detail on everything within eyesight.

What’s great though is the real sense of 1900’s toys and play time. The massive big “ROAR” tanks have little clockwork windy up bits on them, when enemies are shot, they don’t explode in a puddle of blood with limbs flying everywhere, they simply break into two. It’s charming and unique look extends to the sympathetic battlefields where these wars take place.

The battlefields are detailed, with ruts full of mud, puddles, barbed wire and the like and are distinctively war torn and ravaged, just as you expect them to be. Overall, it’s a triumph.

Sound

From the early war gramophone style menu and pause menu music echoing the ‘tunes’ of the generation, through to the gritty cries of a sniped soldier as he plummets to the ground, this isn’t toy-like at all.

Tanks sound mean and furious and the base weapons all sound mean-as, with satisfying ‘boom’ bellows and the like, filling the battlefield.  The infamous bugle “we’re coming!” starts every wave of advancement and an alert siren informs you of when an enemy is too close for comfort to entering your base.

It’s less unique and adventurous sound wise, but we can forgive it that simply for the way it plays.

Multiplayer

Take the battle online via Xbox live over 5 maps encompassing all the stuff you loved about single player including: taking bombing runs in a plane then flying into the enemies toy box without him even knowing, to blocking the road with a tank and screaming “YOU SHALL NOT PASS”, this can either be a serious strategy game fix for your Live arcade collection, or a mess around laugh fest (which is what it turned into for me).

If anything, it catches the fun and spirit of actual toy playing just for the digital revolution and ‘kids’ of the facebook generation. It’s simply too fun at times for words.

Summary

Well, what a shocker. From the first try I had with the trial to actually playing the full game was a massive leap. The increasing learning and difficulty curve will keep you busy and on your toes, whilst remaining challengly fun throughout. One of the greats of Xbox Live Arcade (I say that a lot right?) and proof that we’re going through a golden time of arcade classics. Buy without concern, it’s great.

‘Splosion Man Review

Meet ‘Splosion Man, he’s a crazy foo’ who gets around jumping around exploding on things, off things, and on people. The game has been around for a while now, but thanks to the recent bump in activity on it due to a recent price drop, we thought we’d blag a copy and give it a thorough going over.

Story

Twisted Pixel’s ‘Splosion Man is rather shallow on story to say the least. Where there’s no actual clear reason for why our ‘Sploding friend feels the need to mingle with mad scientists and crazy ass robots, you don’t exactly miss it either.

The basic principle of the game is utilise the ‘Splode by hitting any of the face buttons (x, b, a, y) to make him blow up. Think of these ‘Splodes as jumps with extra fire power for blowing up items, moving massive walkways/doors (left/right or up/down) and to blow barrels up to higher plains. The idea is to get our Man to the exit gate so he can wave in an idiotic fashion at you to celebrate.

With each set of stages, the difficulty increases but luckily for us, the difficulty curve is a slowly building one like all good platformers. With 50 levels including boss and multiplayer (see below) there’s plenty of content and bang for your buck (‘scuse the dreadful pun[s]).

Gameplay

As previously stated, the simple aim is to get from the starting point to the end. You have your main man and his ability to explode himself up to 3 times before he needs to regenerate either on a ledge or via a glowing refuel point if your climbing dizzying heights. You need to use all the scattered around objects to unlock doors, escape traps, dodge electric fields and more in order to make the exit points.

The joy of this game, is the fluidity. If you’re a properly confident and established player with great reactions, levels can be speed run in maybe 1-2 minutes, all of which are gloriously simple (in principle) and extremely satisfying. Whether chaining jumps off of walls, onto barrels, onto strafing floating platforms all while avoiding a random rising water level that’s about to consume you is incredibly fun… and annoying if you’re a bit crap (like me).

The shining selling point of this game is the one button fits all gameplay. Another feature definitely worthy of a mention and something which other game makers should learn by, is all the unlockable content associated with the game.

Not content with being the first game to utilise the avatar unlockable feature, the game features unlockable gamer pictures and an unlockable Xbox Dashboard theme. Little things like these impress us gamers, as they could’ve easily whacked a 40MS point for the pictures, 120 for the theme and 80 for the t-shirt and blagged us all out of more money, but no they decided to sweaten the cake for our ever demanding taste-buds.

Oh yeah, that reminds me: cake. The cake isn’t a lie and instead is found dotted around the levels in hard to reach and hidden areas or locked behind doors when scared scientists try to distance themselves from you. Loving the “not a Valve reference” achievement to go along the ‘collect’ all the pieces goal.

Graphics

Looks wise, animation is cool and funky, fast and frenetic but disappointlingly repetitive as level after level sees the same locations re-used over and over. It’s no bad thing as it keeps loading times to a minimum and keeps the action moving quickly. It’s a negative point though on an otherwise good game.

Menu screens are vibrant, colourful and fully animated in 3d with crazed scientists fleeing from ‘Splosion Man once a selection has been made. Little things like this impress me, and there’s plenty of cheeky, childish humour dotted all around the game that never fails to raise a smile or two.

Sound

“Everybody loves donuts, I know I doo-oooo,” whilst carrying a fat man above your head to use as a shield from a turret is simply wreaking of a win moment. Make ‘Splosion man run and he’ll so some crazy panting and quite frankly weird and hilarious noises. Don’t think he’s fluent in English, but he can say “pork” so it’s near enough.

Background music is nice and simple and typically platformer-esque. Put me right in mind of Crash Bandicoot (specifically 3: Warped on the PlayStation 1) with its mix of ridiculous catch phrases, enemy sounds, background music etc. Another feature I particularly liked, was every time you ‘Sploded, the background music would become louder and more dramatic and when you’ve calmed back down, it’d return to normal again. Nice little mechanic and feature.

Multiplayer

Featuring full 4 player online Xbox Live co-op, with each person having a differently coloured ‘Splosion man and a unique series of levels requiring full team work by double jumping, switch pressing and alternating amongst other things, it almost feels like an extra game has been shoe horned into the party. It’s an absolute hoot attempting to reach your goal, a real genuinely laugh out loud and entertaining experience that all ages will fail to not enjoy.

Summary

To summarise, ‘Splosion Man leads the way with regards to offering the most value for money of any Arcade game out there. Levels are varied (except graphically), vibrant and entertaining and there’s plenty of goodies to unlock to keep your interest.

Taking the game online only makes things even better and is a genuinely hilarious and entertaining way to waste hours. This is a triumph of keeping the gameplay simple and making it work. Easy to pick up and play but extremely difficult to master. A real triumph on Xbox Arcade and well worth your 800 points for sure.

Chime Review

How many games have you bought that give upto 60% of the revenue to charity? Well the latest arcade game ‘Chime’ does that and, at only 400msp it’s a bargain that lets you have a sense of pride that you have done your own bit of charity work without needing to even move from your room.

The game involves the player creating quads of 3 by 3 and bigger that creates a sound from an instrument over the beat when the beatline goes past, the sound created changes depending on the size and shape of the quad. This may sound very dull to many people at first – which it did to me – but once you start playing, making sure you have nothing you need to do for the next couple hours as you will most likely forget all about it. There is also a sense of accomplishment when you create a quad that completly changes the sound you make, as you will find a sound you like trying to match that sound all the time but finding better ones in the process.

There are only two game modes available in this arcade game. Time mode, which allows for the player to compete against the clock on five different levels, on three different times although you only start off with one level unlocked in each one and must cover over a certain percentage of the grid with quads to unlock the other 4 levels. The times include nine minutes, six minutes and three minutes with nine minutes being the easier of the three and three minutes being the hardest one which is very hard to complete due to the little amount of time and mass of the grid that has to be covered but will keep you trying for a good few hours before you finally complete the level or have a breakdown with how tough it can be.

Free mode which does what it says really and allows you to pick any of the songs you have done in time mode and play through it until you have 100% completed it where you have the choice to pick and new level and try mastering that or restarting the level you are on and see if you can beat your personal best or even your friends on the leaderboards. Very addictive game mode when your friends are all competing for the number one spot on the friends leaderboard.

The music included in the game is mostly classic styled, which you may see as a positive or a negative depending on what your into but even as one who doesn’t like classic music it gives you a sense of relaxation while your playing and the artists included are people such as Philip Glass, Paul Hartnoll and Markus Schule. Ever heard of them? I know I haven’t but can now say that I have.

The graphics are what you would expect of a game of this style with a polished look about it that you notice from the moment you start playing it. Simple gameplay that anyone from the age of 5 to about 90 would be able to pick up and not have to many problems with the gameplay style and gameplay.

Overall rating – 6.5

*Reviewed by Mutated Monkeyz.