Written by: Ian

 

 

 

The first Toy Soldiers remains one of my favourite XBLA games of all time. Does Signal Studio’s sequel live up to the lofty heights set by the first game? Skipping out every conflict up until the 80’s, "Toy Soldiers: Cold War" also tries to ape various films from the era, whilst retaining some sort of pseudo- tabletop/ serious nature.

 

 

There never was much of a story to the first Toy Soldiers, and that remains exactly the same in Cold War. You get a little bit of text before each scenario in the loading screen, but it’s easy to ignore. Each level starts with a quick scene, but it’s just to set out the fact that you need to survive another load of enemy waves. There is far more variation this time around, but the story is still wafer thin.

 

 

Cold War has not evolved a great deal since the first Toy Soldiers when it comes to the core gameplay. The game remains a tower defence title, but with the option to control one of your turrets or units at a time to help sway the battle. There are still large and small turret emplacements, and the turret types and upgrade levels are exactly the same as the first game.

 

 

There are more units to control this time around, and they seem more powerful too, so there is a lesser importance to actually controlling the turrets in this sequel. However, if you do control the turrets directly, then there are bonuses. By killing units in quick succession, you get a combo. Score high enough and the turret won’t have to reload, and go even higher and you unlock a roll on the ‘barrage’ table. This gives you a free bonus, like either some time with the commando, or an airstrike, or even a COD-style Hercules attack.

 

 

The main campaign is a decent length, and does a good job of guiding you into the campaign, and also features the traditional ridiculous bosses. There are also some minigames to get high scores on, and achievement hunters will take an age to get all 200 points. It’s a great value package really, especially as the quality is right up there throughout.