Only A little Late... Toy Soldiers: Cold War Review

Toy Soldiers is a prime example of why the XBLA program (and Indie games) are good for the industry.

Full disclosure: We acquired Toy Soldiers: Cold War Via Games with Gold.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War is an hybrid title - A tower Defence game with Third person shooter elements combining strategic thinking and action gameplay. The original Toy Soldiers was set in World War 1 but the sequel has skipped the expect WW2 era and jumped to the 80's. Complete with Top Gun styled Music, 80's action movie references and iconic 80's memorabilia littering the levels.

3rd Person Tower Defender

It's hybrid nature is fantastic. At any time you can assume control of any of your turrets, which is a great feature seeing as it basicly fixes the issues I have with tower defence games. Most TD games either have me waiting for the cannon fodder to earn me enough to build the next tower or having built a good system have to stand back and watch the AI do foolish things like using anti armour against troops as the tanks roll by unharmed. Two issues that disappear when you can control the turrets yourself.

You place towers on special areas around the map there are 6 towers Machine Gun, Anti tank, Mortar, Makeshift, Anti Air, Artillery. Each of the towers have their unique uses. combined with the limited placement sites you cant just spam AT turrets or Machine guns and hope for the best. The Anti Air and Artillery require larger placements and so are limited to a few spaces per map increasing the need for forward thinking. Towers can be upgraded that improve their functions and at their highest levels allow you to damage thing they wouldn't E.G. A upgraded machine gun gets an secondary grenade launcher that can do damage to tanks, While it's not as effective as an Anti Tank weapon it dose help out on the larger enemy types.  

There are also special units that only work with you in control. There are various Tanks, Helicopters and Jets, all with different on-board weaponry. These vehicles are free to move around and attack enemies as long as you have the battery power. running low on power? either pick up some spare batteries or park on the charging plate. They are powerful and an enjoyable change of pace. They however pale in comparison to the Commando unit. Unlocked via the games combo system. A powerful unit who wields an RPG in one hand and an LMG in the other. He spews Action movie one-liners like a drunken Rambo impersonator and always brings a smile to the face when used

Toy Story
Almost everything in this game is in fact a toy and all the battles take place on scale model environments on a table top. Little details elude to the fact everything is a toy, a wind up key here or an battery there, even summoning the powerful commando who comes in his own little action figure box . Littering the battlefield are 'full sized' items like playing guards, aviator sun glasses and Rubix cubes. Outside the battlefield is an normal room so you can see desk lamps and wall paper. Its not original but its rather uncommon enough in games to make this feel fun and refreshing. The toy aspect really comes into play against the bosses which can range from flying aircraft carriers to giant plane-tank hybrids that also carries smaller tanks with in

Ways To Game
Toy Soldiers features an Campaign mode, Survival mode, Challenges and VS mode. All modes support local/online multiplayer, Leaderboards and challenges. Co-op is pretty much required on higher difficulties which makes it weird that you have to access level select to invite another player (online or off). Co-op is a lot of fun, both players have free reign to place and control turrets and better yet also earns their own money

Conclusion

Toy Soldiers is an easy recommendation for anybody interested in tower defence games.

Local Co-op and unit control make it a great game to convert a friend to tower defence.

+Plenty of replay value

+Co-op is fully integrated

+Direct control fixes Genre issues

+80's-ness

-Missions can be short

-DLC only adds Levels

-Co-op is hidden

Only a little Late.... Sleeping Dogs Review

Only a Little Late Review of 

Sleeping Dogs

Little Late Reviews - a review of an older title we only recently played

For disclosure I acquired Sleeping Dogs via Xbox Lives Games with Gold Promotion.

Sleeping Dogs was a surprise. A free title that made me regret not buying it. For a game with such troubled development having started life as True Crime 3 before being canceled by Activision (along with Ghostbusters and Brutal Legend) and bought by Square-Enix you'd imagine it be terrible as often the case (Duke Nukem Forever Aliens: Colonial Marines) but other than an issue of length it is an great game.

Hong Kong Nights

I never thought about Hong Kong being an setting for an open world Crime game before. Whilst i'm sure Hong Kong may have organised crime you never hear of it but it turned out to be a fantastic setting.

The island whilst a little hollow in the middle feels alive and lived in with all sorts of collectibles to be found.
The attention to detail spreads over to the population of Hong Kong there is less repeating civilians in a crowd. Some of them only have part of an arm !?!?!

Combat

Open world crime game you know how it'll play right? We'll you'd be surprisingly wrong. Guns are rare and you cant keep them after missions. Which forces you to use the wonderful Fighting, seemingly inspired by the Arkham Games. Your granted an attack button, a counter button and grab button whilst the first two are fairly straight forward but the last brings the games most visceral moments. 

Ancient Art of FACE BLENDER

You can pummel away at your enemy, (with upgrades) brake arms and legs. You can Judo throw and toss your enemies about and drag the to various environmental hazards; cars, phone boxes, AC Fans, phone boxes, buzz-saws and many more.

Brum Brum

Driving is a fairly standard arcade affair. Well with one exception - Action hijacking. you can leap from your car to another, Whilst not original certainly fits the game and helps out during missions. The cars and bikes aren't licensed but are clearly "inspired" by real world cars. 

The car physics can be a bit wonky but are fantastic during chases. Shooting out the tires of a pursing car or bike cause it to flip over and with the rag-doll physics lead to some amazing biker deaths .

To Do List

There is a host of things to do and Find. Shrines that increase health, Lock Boxes to find for money and clothing, CCTV cameras to hack, Drug dealers to bust, Martial arts fight clubs to unlock special outfits (bruce lee, Onk bak), the For-mentioned Jade statues, favors, Girlfriends, Karaoke bars and Races

On the Main missions front there is the primary Triad missions but also Police cases; whilst the Cases don't change the ending they do add more scenes more to the ending.

Actions during missions award (Triad) or subtract (Cop) XP at then end of missions. Increasing you Cop, Triad and Face (overall/general) levels allow you to unlock abilities from various skill trees 

And finally; Shenmue !?!?!  

I spent a small portion of the game collecting the Jade Statues that unlocm new moves, doing 'favours' (open world side missions) and beating on thugs dressed as Ryo Hazuki the star of Shenmue games. 

lets pretend its shenmue 3

The outfit is spot on and I have to believe was done intentionally as certain members of the Gaming Community (including us here at Game Knights UK) are crying out for a new Shenmue or even an HD port

Conclusion 

Sleeping dogs was a treat to play and i whole hardheartedly recommend it. 

Having played this after GTA V, I prefer this in some ways. 

There is an fantastic little Karaoke game that plays like Rock Bank/Lips 

+ Amazing Fighting

+Living Hong Kong
+Limited Use of Guns

+ Shenmue Patch

+Die Hard Level

-Smallish World Map

-A Little Short for an open World Game
-Stiff Wild Animation

Sleeping Dogs Classics (Xbox 360) £14.22

Himaru's Take

This game surprised me, I was expecting something along the lines of True Crime LA or that awful Vin Diesel game, but it turned out to be very refreshing. After playing GTAOnline it was nice to have something a bit different, whilst being familiar. The first thing i noticed; was the combat and flexibility of the open world. I would often just drive around and look at the vast cityscape, strolling into the market and purchasing some noodles or customising Wei's clothes and appearance, looking at the bustling night life or rumble down a back alley and beat up some thugs, I loved hijacking buses and driving around picking up passengers, because i'm a badass like that.

There were a vast amount of side quests and 'favours' that kept me busy when i didn't want to progress with the story. the CCTV hacking was a fun pastime for me and trying to obtain enough 'Face' to acquire new clothes and vehicles to make Wei more "Gangsta"

All in all, I enjoyed Sleeping Dogs. It could have done with a bit more meat on its bones, but for a free download, I ain't complaining. And will return to it again in the near future to start afresh, and Hopefully I won't screw Wei's life up too badly. hah!