Deep Systems, Hollow Execution – Toy Soldiers War Chest Review

<p>Develop Signal Games continues their Toy Soldiers legacy with the tower defense focused War Chest&period; On the outside&comma; <em>Toy Soldiers War Chest<&sol;em> is rough on the edges with poor graphics on the PlayStation 4 and susceptible frame rate and clipping issues&period; However&comma; in between&comma; there is some fun to be had with the many tower defense elements blending smartly with the third person combat and upgrade heavy experience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The campaign of <em>Toy Soldiers<&sol;em> centers around 4 heroes with different themes and playboxes&comma; as the game&&num;8217&semi;s title suggests&comma; but they are generally all just re-skins of the same enemy variants&period; You have the regular foot soldier&comma; the more powerful mini-bosses&comma; and either air or tank units&period; You progress through the campaign by clearing all waves on a level through upgrading your turrets&comma; anti-aircraft guns&comma; and the like&comma; either controlling them yourself or allowing the AI to fire for you while you sit on the birds eye screen and set tactics&period; You also have the ability&comma; usually once or twice per match&comma; to assume the role of the hero character that comes in the way of a fancy animation wherein the little toy rips out of its toybox and allows you to control them in third person view&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;imgur&period;com&sol;srgreLL&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Toy Soldiers&colon; War Chest&comma; Ubisoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The problems arise when you qickly realize the game is laden with microtransactions for characters and toyboxes such as <em>G&period;I&period; Joe<&sol;em> and <em>Assassin&&num;8217&semi;s Creed&period; <&sol;em>This and being littered with UPlay connectivty in the online portion which isn&&num;8217&semi;t much different then the single player campaign side are annoyances&period; Players are now able to both attack and defend with attacking being egregiously difficult as defending players bombard your infantry with barrel bombs and machine gun fire ad infinitum&period; On the audio&sol;visual side&comma; themes of toyboxes vary incredibly but the grimey graphics and poor textures do not help&period; The voice-acting is subpar&comma; and the music gets annoying rather quickly&period; Although the menus are neatly designed&comma; the loading times are incredibly long and&comma; as mentioned before&comma; there are framerate issues&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Coming back to the core gameplay&comma; players are usually in the process of surveying the enemy types and building appropriate defenses against said enemies&period; For example&comma; if the game throws a few powerful mini-bosses and dozens of infantry&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s best to put powerful anti-aircraft weapons near your toybox&comma; so you can launch missiles and take out massive groups of enemies by extending the range of the AA machines&period; You can also set up a few anti-infantry turrets &&num;8211&semi; which upgrades their damage &&num;8211&semi; to blow away as many of the enemies as possible close to their spawn point&period; This strategic level of play is <em>Toy Soldiers&&num;8217&semi;<&sol;em> greatest attribute&period; It really shines when you are in the later stages on the 13th wave having to rush across the screen and repair one of your vital anti-tank missles with your budget running out&period; Each kill gives the player an X amount of cash they can spend on upgrades and weapons&comma; and after successfully clearing a level&comma; the player is given a <em>FIFA Ultimate Team<&sol;em>-style pack reward of 3 different items&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;imgur&period;com&sol;N0pbd2G&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Toy Soldiers&colon; War Chest&comma; Ubisoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The last gamemode&comma; and <em>Toy Soldiers<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi; most ingenious&comma; is called Weekly War&period; Every weekday&comma; the developers launch daily challenges for players to attain weekly reward&period; For example&comma; for one week&comma; <em>G&period;I&period; Joe<&sol;em> might be invading your toybox and by completing the 5 daily challenges&comma; you are given a free toybox full of characters or new levels&period; This constant stream of content is a smart way for the developers to get players back into the game with legitimately good incentives&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<em>Toy Soldiers War Chest<&sol;em>&comma; despite its technical issues&comma; is a decent and deep tower defense title that would have been much better with more content available to the player out of the box&period; A more polished experience with nice visuals would have made this sequel great&comma; but the hindrances &lpar;eg&comma; frame drops and monetary systems&rpar; are too troublesome for this game to deserve great praise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center"><em><strong>A PS4 code for Toy Soldiers was provided by Ubisoft for review purposes&period; <&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;