The first Toy Soldiers was a whimsical take on tower defense, taking place in a world of wind-up and tin soldiers modeled after World War 1 fighters.  It was a delightful take on the “living toys” well that has been milked plenty of times before, but was done freshly enough to keep any thoughts of “I’ve seen this before” from cropping up in your head.  Hoping to catch lightning in a bottle a second time, Signal Studios has decided to move their series into a realm a little more familiar to kids of the 80’s and beyond--playing in a world of Cold War and G.I. Joe inspired toys.

All the tower defense tropes you’re familiar with are in play, you buy towers with different attack types, kill oncoming hordes, receive money/resources for killing hordes, use said resources to upgrade the current defenses and build more.  Toy Soldiers: Cold War brings in a couple of more hands-on features, allowing direct control of turrets and piloting remote controlled heavy vehicles like tanks and helicopters.  Direct control gives the player the ability to work up scoring multipliers and even earn special attacks, such as artillery barrages and a Stallone-inspired rampaging commando.

The execution of basics in this game is excellent.  Graphics, sound, and gameplay are all solid.  The scoring system awards time management and hand-on play instead of sitting back and letting the AI do the work for you.  Unfortunately, this far into the console cycle there’s a ton of solid games out there, and I was left waiting for something in TS:CW to stand out to me.

The original Toy Soldiers had a marvelous charm about it due to the tin and wind-up atmosphere behind the “toys”.  But Cold War lacks that charm on almost every level.  The only reminders that you get that you’re playing with “toys” is from fly-by opening sequences at the beginning of the level and the “battery charge” time-limit on vehicles.  Even the screen shots I’ve added to the review make it hard to pick the “toy” from the “soldier”, and I tried to pick some of the more obvious ones out of a sense of honesty.  Other than those touches, you’re just playing “generic Cold War tower defense”; if you were playing TS:CW and told me you forgot you were supposed to be playing with 80’s era action figures, I wouldn’t just understand, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.

So, lacking the polish of the 80’s action figure paint coating, you’re left with a collection of mini-games and a generic tower defense.  I feel like judging a game on it’s mini-games is like a food critic judging a meal based on the napkin and after dinner mint, so that leaves us with a generic tower defense.  And frankly, there’s better tower defense games out there, and I’m not talking in general, I’m talking better tower defense games on Xbox Live Arcade.  You’d be better off taking your money and buying fifteen dollars worth of G.I. Joes (which these days appears to be less than two).

Unrealized imagination and uninventive implementation, paired with a game that really doesn’t give you a reason to purchase above other selections, are the reason I have to rate this game a

Grade: C