Before I even start into this review, I think it’s worth mentioning that I have never enjoyed the genre of “Tower Defense” games. They all seemed to similar to me and none of them felt like I was doing anything exciting. That being said, Anomaly: Warzone Earth really piqued my interest with it’s promise to basically be the complete opposite of that.
Title: Anomaly: Warzone Earth
Publisher: 11 Bit Studios
Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Platform: Xbox 360, PC, Mobile
Genre: Action, Strategy
Release Date: April 06, 2012
Price: 800 MSP
Rating: E 10+
* Publisher Provided*
Before I even start into this review, I think it’s worth mentioning that I have never enjoyed the genre of “Tower Defense” games. They all seemed to similar to me and none of them felt like I was doing anything exciting. That being said, Anomaly: Warzone Earth really piqued my interest with it’s promise to basically be the complete opposite of that.
In the relatively near future, an alien ship has crash landed in Baghdad. Shortly there after, strange “anomalies” start popping up and covering the city in a shroud of darkness. As the leader of a military convoy, you and your team are sent in to investigate. What is found is hostile turrets and machines have begun to spring up in the affected areas beneath the anomalies. Now your goal is rescue and survival.
Anomaly will take you, the player, through several different large cities, including Baghdad, and Tokyo. As the field commander you will have control of many different mobile weapons like APCs, Tanks, and several support units. Also at your disposal are the abilities to heal, conceal, and divert fire from your convoy. You’ll need to use all these items as the commander to snake your way through the war-torn streets to what ever goal you need to accomplish.
Along your route, there will be enemies that will do their best to stop you. This is where the reverse tower defense thinking comes into play. The enemy towers will do their best to stop you, and your convoy of troops and equipment, from reaching their goal. Where in a normal game of tower defense your strategy is to keep the invaders out, you are the one trying to destroy the towers and break enemy lines. There are many different defenses the enemy has laid out against you and each of them requires a different way of approaching them. Some are big and slow, some fast but less powerful, others aren’t able to turn at all. Finding the weakness of each, and exploiting it, is key to winning each battle.
Matches can take anything from five minutes to up to an hour to navigate through and complete. Depending on the amount of resistance that you are met with will also have an effect on your time in mission. From the outset of the mission you need to choose your route to the end goal. Sometimes these routes will need to be changed mid-battle to avoid more enemy forces, or to simply bypass something obstructing your path. At the end of each match you are awarded medals based on your performance in battle as well as how directly and efficient you are.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth accomplished one thing, if nothing else, it got me to play a tower defense game, and actually enjoy it. Each mission, though not wildly different from the last, consisted of more than me just plopping down weapons in the hopes of stopping troop advancement. By thrusting the player into the other side of the battle it creates a different and sometimes more complex game of strategy.
Anomaly is a great looking game that runs very smoothly, and most importantly, controls competently on a console. The voice acting, while a bit cliche’, is done well and never created those “groaner” moments that pop up so frequently in other military shooters. With several different modes, including something akin to a hoard mode, there is a fair amount of replay value here. The addition of two squad attack modes also layers in a bit of multiplayer with out being competitive.
For as much as I dislike “Tower Defense” games, it was surprising to me that I enjoyed Anomaly: Warzone Earth as much as I have. The game has appeared on multiple systems and devices since it’s release on the PC, and the XBLA version fits in nicely with those as well. I will say in the days of “everything must have multiplayer” it is refreshing to see that games that could do it, don’t have to have it to succeed. Anomaly has a couple niggling quirks that took a bit to get past, but they are minimal enough that they don’t affect the overall game. Anomaly: Warzone Earth is something I would recommend gamers check out if they enjoy “Tower Defense” games. Even if, like me, you don’t, it is still worth giving it a shot, especially since it is so readily available on so many platforms.
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