That's what makes Anomaly stand out as a pretty unique game.
You're in charge of selecting which units you'd like in your convoy, up to 6,
which is also the number of different units in the game. You're choices are
between the APC, Crawler (heavy hitter, light armor), Shield, Tank, Dragon
(short range, but bidrectional firing ability), and Supply. Each unit has it's
advantages and disadvantages, though you don't have access to each one
immediately, rather unlocking them as you progress through the story.
Additionally, each unit has a different cost, and while each unit can be
upgraded, the cost for that increase to attack and armor varies depending on
the unit, making a Tank much more expensive to purchase and upgrade compared
to, say, the APC, and since currency is limited to a few pickup points around a
level and successfully defeating towers, it really makes a difference.
Ultimately, understanding the differences between the units, and the costs associated
with different make ups, while weighing you're play style, will dictate how you
proceed. Personally, I prefer Tanks fore and aft, with two Crawlers dead
center, and two shields in the number 2 and 4 slots, since they only shield the
two units they are adjacent to.
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| With the ability to pause the game and shift my units around on the fly, I can take the Tanks and swap them, which is useful when the on in the front has taken a beating. |
Now most of the units seem pretty self explanatory, as they
deal damage or prevent it in some way or another. But what about Supply -
what's that all about? Supply is a unit that, depending on how it's been
upgraded, resupplies you're four special abilities, which you can also obtain
occasionally after defeating enemy towers. These are repair, smoke, decoy, and
airstrike, which provide you with a means to mitigate incoming damage or deal a
bit of your own, and all of which deploy around the commander, the character
you take on the roll of, since the folks over at 11 bit studios couldn't settle
for just making a reverse tower defense game and instead had to add a playable
character.
There have been several TD games where you take a much more
active roll in the gameplay, such as Orcs Must Die!, Dungeon Defenders, and
Sanctum, all of which have you standing toe to toe with the enemies you must
defeat. Anomaly is nothing like that. Instead the commander is a very passive
roll, delegated to maintain your units, the key use of your ability to repair
allies or protect them is a critical part of the game. This is why it is
important not to wander off or get so far ahead of your units that you start to
take damage yourself, because if you do die, while you will respawn, you will
lose a good chunk of time waiting to do so and then running to catch up with
your units - which is all time during which they could be taking damage and dying.
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| You can also alter your units path on the fly, which is useful for avoiding some of the larger enemies in the game. |
There are a total of 6 enemy towers in the game, and while
most of them are fairly typical of this genre, except for the whole part where
they're shooting at you, there are two that reflect the uniqueness of this
game. Those would be the Hacker and Energizer, which interfere with your units
and make them target you rather than the towers, generally killing you quickly,
which I've already covered why you would want to avoid that, or absorb the
energy from your special abilities, and, when fully charged, creates a wave
that repairs and rebuilds all towers within a certain range, respectively. So
both of those are bad.
The other enemies, as I said, are typical fare, consisting
of an extremely common turret, a fixed heavy hitter that will obliterate
anything in it's firing path, which is limited to the lane directly in front of
it, a slow moving but AoE damage causing turret, and a light damage tower the
impacts multiple enemies and has the nasty habit of burning through you're
shields in short order. Your angle of approach, the density of enemy towers,
and availability of alternate paths are all things to consider when mapping out
your route through each level.
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| Scorcher + frontal assault = bad. |
There are a total of 14 missions in the game, and most of
them are pretty straight forward, requiring you to get from one end to the
other of a map. There is an escort missions where you must time your route so
that you can provide cover for a damaged aircraft the flies directly from point
A to B, which happens to make a nice diagonal line across the grid pattern you
can move on. There is also a mission in which you have to constantly change
your route to avoid incoming heavy artillery strikes that are capable of wiping
out your units in sort order., and is an excellent example of the kind of focus
and strategy required in this game.
Anomaly Warzone Earth is a refreshing entry into the tower
defense genre. It is surprising how enjoyable it is to take an established idea
and flip it on it's head, and it very much works in this game. Look for it around
$5 or so, though it was a bit less when I jumped on it. For your money you'll
get about 6 hours of play time, and a refreshing experience - 7 out of 10.
So, the final breakdown:
Score: 7/10
Suggested Price: $5
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