Toy Soldiers: Cold War

Bit by bit,
Torn apart,
We never win,
But the battle rages on
For Toy Soldiers

.......

You know, when I first heard that song, I was under the impression that it was about a remorseful drug dealer, racked with guilt over the fact that she got her best friend addicted.

But I was wrong.

It's about this freaking game.

You never win. You rarely LOSE, but you never win.

Another thing Martika was right about, only emptiness remains.

Ugh.... Where to start with this one.

Toy Soldiers: Cold war is brought to us by the XBox Live Arcade. I've only reviewed one other game from this haven of independent designers, that was Dust.

I didn't like Dust. I found it boring as hell. But I hardly think it was a BAD game. I'll just throw it in the "crap that's not for me" pile with X-COM.

This....

This is a BAD game.

You go through this game with one constantly burning question:

What the flying f$&k do you want me to DO?!?!

I flew into this BLIND. I knew nothing about this game until I looked at my XBox dashboard and saw they were offering it for free.

And after the UNPARALLELED success of Dead Island, who could say no to that?

I boot up the XBox and move into the title screen.

I see that when they spoke of "Toy Soldiers" in the title, they were not being ironic. You are playing as a living kid's Army Men set.

That left a good impression. I like the fact that it sort of pans games like Call of Duty or Battlefield. Two game series that take the horror of military armed combat and dunk it in so much machismo and ethnocentric bullshit that something that's meant to honor our military comes of as INSULTING them, and their goals.

So I was looking forward to it. Though while the "Toy Soldiers" part of the title was indeed accurate, I don't think this designer knows what a "Cold War" is.

You know what? Who cares? It sort of fits in with the whole "kid playing with his toys" shtick the game has going.

So I press the start button and.... I'm thrown into a machine gun nest on some poor woman's kitchen counter.

Oh...... Oh dear.

This is a tower defense game.

I suck at these.

Here's the deal with tower defense: You have a tower, or base, or doorway that you must not let the enemy reach. You stop the enemy by setting up little defense stations along the way. Different stations do different things. You get the idea.

Like I said. I SUCK at these games.

But hey! I promised myself that I would not let my incompetence taint a game's quality in my eyes. Remember I gave a positive review to XCOM.

And no one is good at XCOM, we merely survive it.

So, okay! Let's get this started! What am I defending?

Hello?

Yes, game. Shoot the red guys. I've been doing that for ten straight minutes now. What exactly is my goal?

Oh, okay we're moving over to a guided missile launcher station now.

Shoot down the helicopters... okay. What am I defending again?

Game?

And thus I drifted without purpose for another fifteen minutes of playtime until finally I was given full control over what station I played as when. I could pick one of six stations around a massive tower made out of a Coke can.

A goal! Some direction! Thank you LORD in heaven!

Ok. I have a purpose in mind now. DO NOT LET RED GUYS REACH COKE CAN.

F$&k! One of the red guys reached the Coke can!

I'm screwed! Game over. I'd better restart, I just lost.

No... Apparently I didn't.

Yeah, even though the enemy reached the tower in the tower defense game, that was not in fact game over.

So without knowing what the hell to do, I was just shooting bad guys until a prompt came up that I was shooting my own infantry.

.... Wait, I have INFANTRY?!?! When the sh*t did that happen?

How do I tell the difference between them? The bad guys are red, my guys are reddish brown. That looks like the same color when they're a MILE AWAY from you.

So, blocked at every chance to PLAY this game I put the controller down and waited for the game over.

I waited a VERY long time.

All of a sudden, a prompt came on the screen to press the X button.

I did so out of panic, and then I was playing as Rambo.

No kidding. Seriously. I was f$&king Rambo. Red headband. Impossible guns. Ammo belt. Voice actor doing a godawful Stallone impression.

I was allowed to run around and shoot people, however. So I shot at people I thought were enemies..... INSTANT game over for excessive friendly fire.

That's when I finally got it. This game rewards you for doing NOTHING.

So I did what anyone would do in this situation.

I shut the game off. INSTANT WIN.

This thing is BAFFLING. I have never been less clear on what the hell a game wanted me to actually DO. To the point where I honestly thought it wanted me to do nothing at all.

A curious game Toy Soldiers: Cold War. The only winning move is not to play.

.......

Sweet Christmas I just made a War Games reference. I've just spent two reviews with games I hate, now I can barely remember anything I like.

I need something good. What's coming up?

......

Oh.

Ohohoho YES.

YES! This will DO.

Okay, you guys. The game I'm going to review is going to take me a WHILE to finish, and I WANT to finish it. It'll probably take me a week. Two weeks tops.

I've got a vent post coming up, that should help tide you over.

And besides. If I'm going to take THIS game on. I'm going to need a killer playlist.

NEXT POST: MCC'S TOP TEN SONGS TO GAME TO

Until next time.