Toy Soldiers: War Chest - Hall of Fame Edition (PlayStation 4) Review

Set in the imagination of a child's toy box, this is a tower defence game, with a twist. Rather than laying down a barrage of towers to combat the oncoming wave of enemies and then watching the results, in Toy Soldiers: War Chest - Hall of Fame Edition players can gain control of the said towers. This is where this comes to life, as allowing the towers to work automatically is a slow and petty chore. Taking control of a tower allows the gameplay to flow quicker, while also delivering on the anarchy and chaos that comes from being in a war.

Enemies deploy in waves, with the central aim being to survive all the waves without losing the home base. These come in three different types: ground troopers, armoured vehicles and aircraft vehicles. Each wave displays an icon, which highlights who the main enemy-type in that wave will be, thus allowing for ample preparation for it. Generally, there are approximately 60 seconds to plan for a wave; although they can be deployed instantly with the press of a button.

Each unit type has an opposing turret that can exploit their weaknesses. In other words, one turret is strongest against ground troops, another turret is strongest against armoured vehicles, while a third turret can only attack flying aircrafts. However, these cannot just be built anywhere along the path. There are certain amounts of "lots" which can be built on, and this is where the strategy really comes into play. Some maps may offer up to eight turrets be built simultaneously, while others may restrict that number to four. Thus, prioritizing the different turret combinations to battle the oncoming waves, greatly adds to the challenge. Missions are won by avoid getting too attached to the turrets, and razing those that are no longer needed and replaced by new turrets.

Once built, though, these can be upgraded for the right amount of coins. Each one contains its own attributes, from the range of attack, to accuracy and damage dealt, as well as their hit points. Each attribute can be upgraded up to three times, thus making them deadlier and durable. This helps greatly for when the latter waves can become near impossible to win without upgrading some of the turrets to their full potential, and even then, it can still be quite tough.

The base game offers four different armies to play as, from Kaiser and Phantom to Starbright and Dark Star. While they are all visually unique, they pretty much play the same way. Which is disappointing, considering that the Hall of Fame Edition offers two armies from GI Joe, an army from Masters of the Universe, and Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed army. While there are eight varied armies to choose from, they perform as carbon copies of each other, just with different costumes. There are no advantages or disadvantages to playing as any of them, which is frustrating in itself, especially when the game tries to encourage playing through the campaigns with each army.

Another issue with the added four armies in the Hall of Fame Edition, is that they can only be played by the account that purchased them. When trying out the multiplayer aspect of the game, it was quite astonishing to see that no one else could play as He-Man or the Assassins, as they could only be selected by the account that purchased them. Considering that, the only replay value for the game is the multiplayer aspect, locking the additional armies behind the original account negatively influences the experience of playing this with others.

While Ubisoft's efforts in including an army based off one of their most successful IP's in Assassin's Creed might have been misplaced, another of its new offerings had also found its way onto Toy Soldiers: War Chest - Hall of Fame Edition. In between missions, different weapons can be purchased for the main heroes of each army. While most can be bought with in-game currency, which can be earned by completing missions, some weapons can only be bought using Uplay currency, thus forcing the player into signing up for Uplay, if Ubisoft haven't made them do so already.

While the missions can be quite lengthy, it's the loading times before the map initiates where the real pain begins. Due to the complexities that go into each map, the loading times are ridiculously long. Coupled with certain glitches that may occur during the game, thus causing the entire level to restart, can make playing through this title a chore, rather than a fun and engaging experience.

One glitch was caused within the turret upgrades menu, where an option to be upgraded couldn't be selected, and there was no way of closing that menu in order to select anything else, as the game continued with the turrets left to their own devices. The only solution was to quit the game and start again. Another mission had made it halfway through the waves, before an error message had appeared on the screen, causing the entire game to close. While glitches are to be expected in video games, some of these can be game breaking, when the excessive load times are also taken into account.