Anomaly: Warzone Earth has finally hit the cycle. It originally appeared on PC back in 2011. Later, it made its way to iOS, followed shortly by Android. Not long ago, it appeared on Xbox Live Arcade, and now it’s available on the Playstation Network. So we’ve decided to dust off our written review, fire up our Playstation 3 and turn this bad boy into a video review for all the Anomaly newcomers.
Just about everyone who considers themselves a gamer knows what the “tower defense” genre is. Most gamers have probably played a few of them in their time. The developers over at 11 Bit Studios decided to pull a reversal on us with their game Anomaly: Warzone Earth. Instead of building various towers to shoot down invading forces, you are the invading force trying to get by enemy towers.
An alien ship has crash-landed creating the anomaly and it is your job as Commander of Unit 14 to go check it out. Naturally, the aliens don’t want any part of that so they will go out of their way to build just enough towers along the roadways for you to sneak through. Overall it is pretty straightforward, although it does have a couple “the princess is in another castle” moments.
The object of each level is to get past enemy towers by any means necessary. You can either find the best route in each level and strategically make your way through, or go head on and try your best to take everything out along the way.
You start each level on a map screen where you can plan your route and customize your motorcade. Your route can be altered at any time using the very easy to manage tactics screen. As the level starts you take control of the commander who walks around on foot and your main job is to aid your vehicles and keep them alive.
Your commander can utilize various abilities that are airdropped on the field from time to time. For example, the repair ability casts a small field that will fix your vehicles moving through it. Decoys and the smokescreen ability confuse enemy towers allowing you to aggressively gain the upper hand. Proper management of your short supply of special abilities is the key to success.
Top-down games are not usually known for their mind-blowing graphics. However, Anomaly is almost as fun to look at as it is to play. The cities look great in their destroyed state, and they have a surprising amount of color to them that isn’t brown. The alien towers also add a lot to the overall look. They look like they were pulled straight from a sci-fi film.
While it might fade into the background when things get intense, the sound design in Anomaly has some great things going for it. First and foremost, the sound effects are spot on. The sci-fi clicks, beeps and lasers sound appropriate and a little campy, but in a good way. The tanks, explosions and airplanes sound great as well.
The music is also very entertaining to listen to. When there isn’t much going on around you the music is low and eerie, but when things heat up, it picks up the pace and even has a little cultural influence depending on what city you are fighting in. Last, but not least, the voice actors do a commendable job.
For a budget priced game, Anomaly brings a lot to the table. The campaign offers different types of missions, some of them being escort, time based, and all out assault. They are all very engaging, and the difficulty scales appropriately as you progress. After you have finished the campaign, you can go back to try to beat each level as efficiently as possible, or you can try your hand at the survival modes. Survival gives you waves of designated targets that you have to take down within the time limit, so if you like beat the clock style game play then you will get even more out of Anomaly.
If you like strategy or tower defense games, Anomaly is a sure bet. For the amount of content you get, $10 is a very reasonable price for this fantastic title.
- Name: Anomaly: Warzone Earth
- Available on: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android
- Developed by: 11 bit studios
- Price: $10.00
- Elder-Geek Score: 4 out of 5 / Worth Buying