1921

Yes! I grabbed the demo of Toy Soldiers and am looking forward to checking it out. The video looked neat.

1922

Toy Soldiers lets you invert look for all the towers except the sniper tower. Very weird.

1923

I never really paid much attention to Toy Soldiers but I really liked the demo. Anyone who has played further into the game have any deeper insight? Does it hold up, how long is the campaign, interesting new units, that sort of thing?

1924

There’s a Facebook match-3 puzzle game tie-in to Toy Soldiers, as well, where matching icons and setting up combos deploys troops to fend off enemy armies and set up minefields. It’s pretty good, although the strategy of lining up matches against particular columns of enemy attacks can be cheesed by simply matching and comboing as quickly as possible to simply overwhelm the enemy with combo-bonus minefields and attacks.

1925

Giant Bomb Toy Soldiers Quick Look. I really like the look and miniatures feel of this game.

1926

Holy balls, this looks awesome. The Giant Bomb quicklook sold me.

1927

I think most units are actually available in the tutorial (save a few), before the real campaign starts, but I haven’t gotten that far into it myself. Although I know there’s a Campaign+ where you get to play the ze Germans on nighttime versions of the levels. There’s also your normal Survivor mode where you fight waves of enemies. And then there’s the Elite difficulty where your troops will only fire when you’re in control of them.

This game kinda reminds me of the “modern” Battlezone, in that it adds action to the tower defense genre, like BZ did to RTS games. And I loved BZ.

Hopefully, I can get deeper into it this weekend when I get some more free time (although it has to compete with Bad Company 2).

1928

Just launched the game and stuck my toes in for a few minutes. Is the tutorial really a tutorial in the traditional sense? I remember opting for it (or something that sounded like it) when I started the campaign, but as soon as I jumped in the plane the tips stopped appearing and I felt like I had fallen out of tutorial mode, or something, and wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to proceed at that point. So I farted around a bit, started losing badly, and ran out of time.

Still, very polished game and lots of fun.

1929

I think Eurogamer has sold me on the remake of Perfect Dark with this:

4J has aimed to present a classic game in the way that you remember it, rather than the way it actually was. (On the N64 in particular, there’s often a gaping chasm between rosy recollection and the juddering, artefacted reality.)

Awesome.

What about this week’s game? Has anyone tried Scrap Metal yet? I’m downloading it now, and will share impressions later.

1930

Yeah, I’m really pumped for the release of Perfect Dark on XBLA

I never got to play the singleplayer campaign back in the day, and the fact that the multiplayer challenges can be done online with my friends is a big selling point.

1931

I’ve been waiting a long time for PD. Less than a week to go!

1932

Huh. I never even played PD. I guess this is my chance.

1933

Trying out Scrap Metal right now…it seems like a lot of fun. I read that you can only hold a few cars in your garage though so that’s pretty disappointing. Apparently if you release a current car, then pick it again later, all upgrades/customization will be gone.

1934

This quick look makes me very happy:

1935

So I’ve played around with Perfect Dark a little bit, and it is great. It is Perfect Dark as you remembered it, except without the muddy graphics and slowdown. The controls are spot on too, and it has leaderboards and even avatar awards. Obvioiusly if you didn’t like it 10 years ago, you aren’t gonna like it now, but this game holds up. Amazing how much content Rare was able to squeeze out of 250mb.

1936

Having never played it myself, how does it compare to Zero? Equal, better, worse, shit boners?

1937

Good to know. I lived and breathed Goldeneye for about a year and wanted to love Perfect Dark just as much because I could see all the potential that was there, but the slowdowns killed it for me (even with the RAM pack installed). Looking forward to trying it out the way it was meant to be for the first time :)

1938

It is hard for me to say because I didn’t play much PDZ, but since PD is on XBLA there is a demo so I would check that out first.

1939

Does anyone know when the new kingdom for kieflings is going to be released?

1940

I forgot how well done Perfect Dark’s bots are. On the harder settings they are a real challenge without feeling cheap.