Toy Soldiers: Cold War

It ain’t easy being cheesy. The poignant words of Cheeseburger Eddy reveal a simple truth about entertainment: it's highly difficult to be corny and inauthentic and yet still remain entertaining, enjoyable and fun. Yet Toy Soldiers: Cold War is one such game that succeeds in attaining this balance. In the hands of another developer Toy Soldiers: Cold War could very well have been considered a game that was trying too hard. Yet, it doesn’t try to be funny, it is funny. It doesn’t try to recapture the feel of 1980’s movies and toy adverts, it does, and fantastically so.

Like Popcap's highly successful Plants vs. Zombies game, it is Toy Soldiers: Cold War’s attention to detail and setting that makes the game a memorable and enjoyable experience. This is not the Cold War as it was, rife with political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World and the Western World. This is the Cold War as depicted by Hollywood movies and the media, full of grizzled and hardened cigar smoking soldiers, cheesy one liners, unstoppable heroes and over the top action and explosions. It even takes a jab at the material it takes inspiration from using corny variations of memorable quotes from movies like Apocalypse Now. This game is over the top in almost every way, and all the better because of it.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War is a tower defence game where the player must use the righteous might of the allied forces to thwart the devious and nefarious commies. But instead of digital representations of real men of war, the player takes command of an army of toys. It is your goal to ensure that the communist forces do not invade and overwhelm your toy box. As with most tower defence games, the player must utilise several different types of turrets to halt the invading forces. Each type of tower is effective against a specific type of enemy - the anti-tank missiles will make short work of enemy armour, for example. The turrets are upgradeable and each upgrade considerably increases the effectiveness of the turrets.

A fantastic aspect of the game is that all the towers are controllable, and the game does a great job of encouraging the player to utilise the turrets as often as possible - the turrets are far less effective when they are being controlled by the A.I. Additionally, players are rewarded for getting high kill combos in the form of barrages and special units and weapons. I found myself shouting marine rhetoric such as “Get some! Get some!” as I mowed down waves of infantry with my turrets.

Weaponry is not limited to turrets. Players have access to a wide variety of vehicles and units that they can also control. These units can turn the tide of a battle and are great deal of fun to use. The vehicles are all radio controlled and require players to find batteries to keep them going or dock them at a recharging station before they can use them again. This is an effective way of giving the player a considerable amount of power but only for a limited time, thus keeping the game balanced.

As I set up my turrets in the various positions, I couldn’t help but imagine myself as a child looking over my toy box planning out my make-belief battle. This theme is consistently reinforced throughout the game. Indeed, the different locations you will fight are well realised and are easy to recognise as they are littered with famous landmarks like The Pyramids, Mount Rushmore and The Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, if you look closely during the mayhem of battle you may notice that the building in the background is actually a Rubik’s cube or that the obstacle that the toy soldiers are climbing over is a pencil or a VHS. Additionally, when enemy units are destroyed they break apart as a toy would, resembling that G.I Joe figure you were foolish enough to lend to your sister for just one moment, or the cobra villain your dog descended upon when you were outside playing cops and robbers.

It would be a great disappointment if the short but entertaining single player campaign was not followed by an entertaining multiplayer suite, as the best playground battles were the ones where you teamed up with your friends or waged war against your friends. Thankfully, there are number of enjoyable multiplayer modes such as a wave based survival mode and a versus mode, with the co-op mode being the stand-out on higher difficulty levels.

The blend of varied, frantic and entertaining gameplay, mixed with a great attention to detail and well developed setting, makes Toy Soldiers: Cold War a highly enjoyable and fun experience, and one that I can highly recommend to all.

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