Tower Defence, but not as you know it…

Have you ever been playing a Tower Defence game, looked at your enemies and thought, “I wonder what it would be like to be those guys, slowly marching towards my perfectly placed defence turrets/their certain death”? No? Well allow 11 Bit Studios to change your mind.

The studio have turned the concept of Tower Defence on its head, so rather than tactically positioning defences, you’re charging through them. You’re placed in the military grade boots of The Commander, leading the attack on a hostile alien takeover. You must plot a route through the warzone, select the vehicles that form your convoy, and protect said vehicles with a variety of power-ups for when the biological waste hits the electronic air-cooling unit.

You begin each mission by plotting a route through the alien infested hell-hole. Most objectives require you to make your way towards a pick-up point while completing another job on the way, such as fixing a downed probe or protecting a vulnerable unit on the way to safety. The top down view lets you pick which direction your convoy will head in at each possible junction. “Pick the route with the least aliens!”, I hear you cry. Well, a collectable alien substance called “Carusaurum”, usually planted around high numbers of enemies, might make the high score chasers re-think the easy route option. Taking on more enemies also wins you more cash for buying and upgrading units on the fly, such as missile-launching robots and shield-generating tanks.

Once you’ve planned your route, it’s time to set off, and your convoy slowly starts to progress through post-apocalyptic versions of Baghdad and Tokyo with you running along side them. It’s when the action starts that your role as the player really comes into it’s own. The Commander (you) and the convoy have a rather symbiotic relationship. You can take damage and die (although you’ll re-spawn after a short period- it’s when the convoy is destroyed that it’s game over) and the only way to heal yourself is to hover around your convoy. But the convoy doesn’t stand a chance without the power-ups that you provide. These include health boosts; smoke-screens which confuse enemies and cause them to miss; decoys which soak up the enemy fire keeping them busy while your forces go to work on them; and later, the ability to drop nukes. Dropping a power-up creates a circular ‘zone’ where the effects will be active. For example, when dropping a health boost, the units will heal while they’re driving through the ‘zone’. So where and when you drop them is a lesson in strategy. The game doesn’t spoil you with endless goodies either. Many a time I found myself holding off on dropping a smoke-screen or deploying a decoy, not knowing when the next drop of fresh supplies was going to arrive. It quickly becomes an art of rationing. When you do get a supply drop, it’s nothing short of thrilling. Often, power-ups will be dropped off the beaten path, forcing you and the convoy apart, which is dangerous for both parties. It is truly satisfying when you sprint back towards your convoy, fully restocked, just in time to drop a vital health boost.

You’ll often have to amend your route due to unforeseen circumstances, meaning a balance of item management and constant route checking is the key to success here. It’s great to see that a simple reverse of an ancient formula can create what, at times, feels like an all-new genre, and 11 bit studios have added enough action-fuelled mayhem to make it worthwhile.

The story that accompanies the innovative gameplay is unfortunately somewhat lacking. As previously mentioned, aliens have invaded Baghdad and Tokyo and your the platoon sent in to investigate. There’s not a lot here that you won’t have seen before and it’s all pushed forward by some dodgy voice-acting. Hearing a wooden cockney voice proclaim “This energy-field makes Big Ben look like a midget!” is comical for all the wrong reasons.

While the game looks up to scratch for the most part, with sun-drenched sand clashing with the crimson alien space-craft in Baghdad, and tall, intimidating skyscrapers in Tokyo, environments can sometimes feel a little samey. Levels can all too easily merge into each other in your memory, and a little more variation on the two cities would have been very welcome indeed. After you’ve finished the story mode, you can dip your toes into two bonus modes: “Baghdad Mayhem”, which requires you to dispose of heavily armoured enemy power generators against the clock, and “Tokyo Raid”, which has you fighting your way through 18 islands, kicking extra-terrestrial ass as you go. These are basically mini campaigns without the story elements and are great if you’re looking for more aliens to murder.

Overall, Anomaly Warzone Earth is a tight package. Innovative gameplay mechanics mixed with a twist on a heavily saturated genre make this game stand out of the pack. It’s only let down by an average story and poor voice-acting, and while it might possess the most generic title in video game history, it’s certainly worth phoning home about. (Sorry!)

The Good

• An innovative twist on a tired genre.
• Frantic, well balanced gameplay.
• Extra modes means there’s plenty to keep you busy.

The Bad

• Generic story.
• Poor voice-acting.
• Repetitive environments.

7.5/10