Adv: Toy Trouble (by Brainsmash)

Game:  Toy Trouble
Release:  April 2002
Genre:  First Person Shooter
Developer:  Brainsmash
System Requirements:  Pentium II 350 or higher, 32 MB RAM (64 MB Recommended), 8 MB Graphics Card (16 MB Recommended), 32 MB, Hard Disk Space, DirectX 7.0a or higher
Price:  Freeware

One of my favorite Halflife board sets was playing as minature soldiers in a bedroom.  Toy Trouble takes that concept and expands on it making for a very enjoyable game.

The story behind Toy Trouble isn't its major strength as is the case in most FPS games.  You take control of one of four robots and will fight your way through the house destroying the other robots, your rival and finally the all powerful Maximus.

The house is broken up into six different rooms.  Each is carefully crafted to give it a very unique feel.  The spacious living room is the easiest room to explore without your life being threatened.  In addition to being able to fire from an assortment of weapons, the robots also have the abilty to attack enemies with their metal arms and to jump.  This comes in handy when you are trying to escape from another robot, and it also allows you to explore your surroundings for weapons and power-ups.  For example, in the attic, several jumps to the top of some old storage boxes will place you just a jump away from the rafters where strength and speed powerups await you.

The four robots all have individual ratings in 4 categories:  Strength, Speed, Steering and Jumping ability.  My personal favorite was Bullet, a fiesty robot with good average abilities across the board.  However, Lucifer, was probably the robot with the most interesting design.  Lucifer has 4 wheels that are put together something like a drag-racer automobile.  He is much shorter than the other robots, which is great for getting in under couches and other areas where the taller robots such as Bullet and Flex cannot venture. 

In addition to the four initially selectable robots, each robot has a main rival that is selectable once you pass through the game in Arcade mode.  The additional robots are very interesting and provide a lot of variation from the main characters.  Two in paticular, Oink the Clown and Shou-Lin, a female ninja, are wonderfully crafted and really look mechanized.  Brainsmash could have easily put a new skin over the other robots, but instead they took the time to craft entirely new robots for the rivals, which is greatly appreciated.

There are three different game modes in single player.  Survival pits you against all the robots, one at a time with the limitation of a single life.  Time Attack times how quickly you are able to beat all the robots.  Both Survival and Time Attack have high score lists to record your results if you score high enough.  The other single player mode, Arcade, is the one I played the most.  Arcade will randomly put you up each of the other 4 robots, and then will face you against your main rival.  If you are victorious, you will then be faced aganist Maximus, who will fire a machine gun endlessly at you.

The game also sports a multiplayer mode that is split screen so two can play against each other and a network mode for playing versus over a simple TCP/IP network.

I had no real problems with the game, though it would only let me use one of my two daisy-chained Microsoft Sidewinder gamepads, forcing the second player to use the more clumbsy keyboard when I played versus.  There is a great number of graphic options that will greatly change how the game looks on your computer.  Most notably is the alpha shadows which provide a great effect.  The only other issues I ran into were the LONG load time between levels causing me to panic and abort the game thinking it had crashed, and once having a robot run right through a door in the kid's bedroom...thankfully the rounds have a timer, so at the end of the timer we went on to the next round.

Fun: 9 This game is a lot of fun to play.  The rounds were a little short, but trying to smash your opponent using your hands is always a thrill.  The weapons are varied and fun, showing a lot of ingenuity.  My personal favorite was the K-71 Ping Pong which sends explosive ping-pong balls bouncing around the room.  The split screen mode is a flawless good time for fighting your friends.

Concept: 9 The concept of the game isn't exactly new, but the way it was employed was very entertaining and fresh.  I've always been a fan of the "miniaturized" world and was very pleased with the number of levels in the game and the time and effort put into making each character, room and weapon unique from the others while still maintaining the same look throughout the game.

Overall: 9 This game was submitted to us as an "Amateur" peice of work.  I will disagree with that, but I do think it is a wonderful game to spend a few hours on.  Compared to the other games in this category that I've played, this one stands out as one of the best.  The interface is seamless and the game is wonderfully conceived challenge that is well-worth your time. Added: December 21st 2002
Reviewer: The Mole
Score:
Related Link: Toy Trouble Screenshots
Hits: 5348
Language: english