Anomaly: Warzone Earth – Review – Xbox 360 (XBLA)

Anomaly: Warzone Earth is an upcoming real time strategy game on XBLA developed by 11 bit studios, the game is an updated version of the one by the same name already released on the iOS and PC  but features a brand new set of levels called "Tactical Trials" . The game will hit XBLA on April 6 for 800 MSP but can this strategy game stand out among a highly dense genre? well if the tag line "reverse tower defence" or "tower offence" is anything to go by then maybe it has a chance.

Anomaly Warzone Earth sets you up in the not too distant future where an alien spacecraft has crash landed on earth and splintered into different location, and in order to investigate this crash landing you will be going to major cities around the world, which interestingly includes Baghdad, which itself adds to the initial excitement of the game along with Tokyo which offers a certain grab to the audience. The spacecrafts have gone on to set up force fields around these cities, and that is where you come in, you will be heading into these cities as head of "14th platoon" with a mission objective to investigate the crash sites whilst neutralising any threats and preventing any more destruction on Earth. To do this you will have control of a convoy and will be aiming to get your convoy and commander as close to the aliens as possible.

The first thing that will grab your attention in this game is the whole idea and concept of "tower offence" and more importantly its application, the most fundamental and basic application of this concept is the sense that you don't wait for the attackers to come to you like in traditional tower defence games but instead you are the attacks that are going to them. This is a very clever way of appearing to be unique but in all reality this game uses all the mechanics of a tower defence game but tweaks the focus of these mechanics slightly, which in itself is not a bad thing but its easy to see through this unique element that is being promoted along with this game, this is of course not to say this game inst highly unique because it is, but this aspect is easy to see through.

The game play in this game is very satisfying, it does all the basics that a tower defence (or offence) game should do, you know these features by now so I'll not bore you with them, I will instead talk about a unique aspect of the game play, and in a genre so dense with quality titles this is a very important area this game needs to get right and excel.  You will notice when you are (slowly) moving your convoy through all the highly populated enemy strung areas that your unit as it were is lead by a commander, these handy, yet small men add to the flow of the game with some of the talents that they have and abilities they possess, most prominently and most appealingly the ability to turn your convey invisible for a short amount of time and the ability of laying down a smokescreen (the effects you can see in the image below). In the games quest to stand out from the overpopulated crowd the combat is a shining light, but it is not alone, the way you manoeuvre towards your objective is very impressive and you can see the thought process that went into it, because you don't directly control your convey you have to set a destination, of which is your choosing, this typically means that you will have to think about what you are going to do as acting purely on impulse won't get you far, you have to think which way is the quickest, which way has the least enemies and so on. Coupling the before mentioned aspects with the power ups your convoy will need succeeds in adding a unique but highly fun element to the game play and combat.

In every game I ever play I always look at the graphics and art style for inspiration and visual representations of the story the game is trying to tell and this is no different. When dealing with aliens and spacecrafts I feel there are three ways to go visually, you can follow the style set in the film Alien where darkness and shadow is used to portray the aliens, you can follow the example set by the Halo series which focuses on very bright colours and incorporates a comedy element or you can go for the more futuristic advanced style e.g War of the Worlds. This game definitely takes a certain amount of inspiration from the Halo series in the colour palette used, the colours are all very bright and appealing, especially the glow from around your units and the enemy units, couple this with the bright colours coming from the various attack beams and you have a very diverse colour range which in cooperation with the well designed and colourful battlegrounds helps to create a very nice art style.

So often in regards to real time strategy games especially tower defence pace is a problem, and as I hinted at earlier that is no different in this game too, although I will admit the pace of the game is not entirely detrimental to the games experience it is a slight issue that bothered me, the speed in which your convoy moves could be a little quicker. It can be argued that the slowness is to give less experienced players of the genre some time to adjust and work out what needs to be done, which is fine but I do feel a little bit of the tension is lost by doing this.

Many of the problems that this game has often boil down to petty annoyances which can only be a good thing in the sense that it has no crippling flaws but these small problems are still enough to dent your experience slightly, for example the dialogue is instantly forgettable and highly stereotypical and often centres on tough guy army types babbling on with what seems like a cut and paste script, but as I said before these are not big issues in the grand scheme of things.
"Many of the problems that this game has often boil down to petty annoyances"

In a genre crammed full with real time strategy games and more specifically tower defense games it is hard to create something that is both unique, fun and challenging all at the same time but this game managers to do it, at most times it is a joy to be playing the game, and there is enough in the game regarding complexity to keep up a good level of challenge but the game never forgets that it needs to be fun as well. Anomaly: Warzone Earth strives to be unique and despite the cringe worthy tag line it succeeds in most parts and is a genuinely enjoyable XBLA title.

Pros

• Unique feel to the game
• Visual pleasing art style
• Fun yet challenging game play

Cons

• Slight pace issue
• Poor dialogue
• Cringe worthy tag line

Score: 8 out of 10 

A copy of this game was provided by the developer for review purposes.