Toysoldiers - GrandmasterJ

 

    Shrink down extra small and fight for control of the bedroom as tiny green men. This map is highly reminiscent of old classic Army Men games like Sarge's Heroes.

SCMapDB page

Author: RaptorSKA

Date of final release: 2019

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Toysoldiers

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | September 11, 2022 | 6153 characters

    Toy Soldiers is a rats map with the army man theme. I love rats maps, something about being small and fighting to the death in a huge room really appeals to me. With the extra effort of custom models (reskins to be either green, tan, grey, or blue) the map is even more charming.

    Before we get to the fighting players get to spawn inside the house at normal size. We can look outside at the lawn, the car parked in the driveway, some impressive bushes that most people probably won't notice. It's a fun start to the map, using the play set with the glow sprite will start the map properly. The family is out on vacation, and now is the time to drive the tans out of the house.

    The battlefield starts in the attic, it starts off strong with a massive high-vaulted ceiling far above players going through a hall of cardboard boxes. It looks impressive and beautiful and sells the setting completely. The spawn area has a pile of ammo, including underbarrel grenades, along with the M16, mp5, and grenades. The ammo spawns nigh instantaneously after being picked up, which meant I was fully loaded in seconds and so was my teammate. HEV was mostly the same way. No resource rationing, no waiting for supplies to respawn, total supply bliss the whole way through the map.

    Combat starts after the first turn, a bunch of tan soldiers and a sniper in a tower. With the supplies I had I opted to rush the sniper tower and lob an underbarrel grenade in there. I complain a lot about maps being mostly hallways and this map does have a lot of hallways. But the hallways are so stylized and I have plenty of explosives to blow a path forward. There are a number of supply stations around, each one acts like the spawn supplies and respawn almost instantly, the supplies vary but there is always something useful. The hallway combat in this map is just fine. The combat is furious, enemies have a lot of health so even a direct hit from a grenade usually won't kill them. They have mounted guns and at the end of the attic section they have a tank. Through the map's one and only vent section we come to our first checkpoint, at least I think it is, there was an area in the attic that looked like a checkpoint and activated like a checkpoint, but didn't actually update the spawn point. I don't know if it was just a supply station or the first checkpoint is broken but there is a bit of a walking distance between spawn and the first checkpoint.

    The vent puts players in a closet, on top of a shelf. Players fight down through the shelf to the floor, under the door to a helipad and the next checkpoint. This is the bedroom and just like the attic it is expansive and has lots of great details that really sell the feeling of being tiny people fighting a tiny war. The bedroom is another hall of cardboard boxes but it has playsets sprinkled throughout. Clear a barbie house underneath the bed, clear out a wild west toy town, get hit by a very forgiving toy train, and climb up blocks to a second helipad and another checkpoint. I'm skipping over a lot of stuff, there is tons of fast paced and difficult combat along the way. There was even a semi secret desert eagle hidden behind the ground floor of the doll house guarded by blue soldiers. Every step of the journey was great fun.

    The last section of the map, and the bedroom, is the hardest part of the map by far and works slightly differently from the rest of the map. Up to this point the map was a straightforward walkthrough map, follow the path and kill everything in your way. But here players have to assault a huge stronghold with respawning enemies, enemies only respawn here in this section. It's enough to give players pause and maybe worry them if they don't make progress on the first attempt. My teammate and I cleared the fortress by first destroying the Osprey, that did not come back and it dropped a lot of guys off. Then we sniped the bunker guns, destroying a bunker gun will blow a hole in the bunker, even though it does not help us progress if is a fine reward for killing a gun. Every enemy besides the Osprey and bunker guns will respawn so here players will just have to rush the fence, there is a green explosives plunger next to green sandbags, using that will blow a hole in the fence. Climb up the rope ladders in the back of the base, capture the flag, and the map ends in a green fade out, a congratulations message, credits, and one last view of the bedroom before the map ends.

    The whole map was a blast from start to finish. The visuals were great, everything came together to bring the army men theme to life, custom model reskins, custom sounds, the textures and level design, it all worked really well. The action was practically non-stop. Ammo and health was a minor issue, pushing forward and using all the ammo for our best weapons was rewarded with a steady stream of supply stations. Checkpoints came fairly fast, objectives and checkpoints were marked with a glow, it was always obvious where to go next. This map is just really well made. At one point the checkpoint updated and the new spawn point didn't have the crossbow, the next area was full of snipers, I was pissed! But then I found a sniper rifle on a cart, and all was well again. I still do wish we had the crossbow, or added found weapons like the desert eagle to the spawn points. The final spawn point was jam packed with loot so I guess by the end the problem is moot.

Pros:

• amazing level design, the whole map looked beautiful
• clear path forward, objectives glowed, the map has a constant forward momentum
• fast paced combat, enemies weren't overly poweful but were always threatening
• plentiful supplies, short respawn timers
• updating checkpoints, complete with supply dumps
• the beginning section as normal sized in the house was incredibly charming

Cons:

• updating spawn points cut players off from weapons that spawn only in certain areas of the map

Score: 9.5 / 10