Toy Raid – I must admit, I’m a sucker for a classic arcade coin-op. But from playing pixel-perfect retro games as an adult, the experience is somewhat tarnished from being spoiled by the quality of today’s games. Flying Tiger Entertainment recognizes this and, in turn, has created an arcade-style shooting game that has the look and feel of a modern game. Does Toy Raid conjure warm and fuzzy feelings from a time that has long past, or does it miss the mark?
You’ll figure out what you need to do in Toy Raid fairly quickly. Using touch or tilt controls, you control a cannon to blow things up. Targets include everything from paratroopers, missiles, airplanes, and helicopters. Par for the course, hitting targets to upgrade your cannon (e.g. flak cannon, spray cannon, etc.) are available to make things easier for you. Lastly, in Toy Raid there is a nuclear option that can be triggered by shaking the phone (or pressing an on-screen icon) to clear the whole screen. True to the arcade tradition, points in Toy Raid are earned and displayed at the end of each level.
Toy Raid is a good looking and sounding arcade shooter in almost every respect. I’d say the explosions take the cake as they look great and sound powerful. Incidental animations for the aircraft and paratroopers are slick too. The background environments are the only disappointment the assets are recycled with a simple color palette swaps from progressing through the Toy Raid’s 50 levels.
Overall, Toy Raid is a very solid first effort from Flying Tiger Entertainment. It’d be great if three specific things were addressed in subsequent updates. One, there needs to be a sensitivity setting for the tilt control option. It’s more than serviceable, but I found it a bit lacking in precision. Two, online scoreboards makes sense here. Three, I can see a Facebook Connect or Twitter integration being a huge boon to inspire virtual pissing contests.
Despite my wish list here, I’m confident that fans of the genre will sink a lot of time into Toy Raid.
Watch the Toy Raid Video Demo to get a feel for the action:
