Toy Rush Review

On paper, Toy Rush doesn't look particularly remarkable. It's a freemium game, a tower defense/offense title, and it has collectible cards to acquire. It's essentially a mash up of many other elements we've seen before. While, as is the way with such freemium games, patience is necessary when dealing with some timers, Toy Rush still offers a few different elements that make it feel more worthwhile than other titles within the genre.

Players start out with their own base to defend and build upon. It's a familiar premise with players able to place new towers and units to keep things safe for while they're offline. What's different is how this is done. Tickets are gradually accumulated through victories and simply through waiting it out. These are then used to buy packets of cards. The more spent on these card packs, the better the quality of the items gleaned from them. Such randomness is sometimes a bit infuriating when one is desperate for a particular card, but it's also fun to see what happens.

Some cards can be used to build up one's base, while others are reserved for when the player is on the offensive. A campaign mode, as well as multiplayer functionality ensures there's always someone to attack. Cards are placed down at the start of a path, before the characters work their way towards the enemy base. It's possible to queue up plenty of units with a mixture of offensive and defensive capabilities. There are power-ups too, such as boost tiles that can be placed or freezing abilities to stop the enemy's towers from striking. There's a fair amount of strategy here and the toy theme means it's always fun to see what can be used in each situation.

What's not so fun are the waiting times. It's possible, if one gets carried away, to use up all the cards in one failed attack, thereby forcing players to wait until their ticket generator has finished working. That's where those in-app purchases seem more alluring as they really do help when building one's forces.

Be more patient and tolerant than me though, and Toy Rush offers the requisite elements to be worth playing. There's a bit more depth to the strategy that other tower defense titles implement, and the mixture of single player and multiplayer means there's plenty to do here.