Plodding through conflict after conflict the game never
feels laboured giving you new obstacles at every turn and the variety of maps
and planet types keeps you interested ramping up the difficulty with meteors
and moons meaning that you can only approach planets from certain angles,
multiple enemies sending fleets of ships from all directions and eventually a
huge death star like boss that can reduce your planets population to tumble
weeds in an instant Planets Under Attack
soon turns from enjoyable space exploration romp to a frustrating journey into
the unknown.
Although with changeable difficulty settings and an element
of role playing thrown in for good measure you can soon conquer even the most
difficult level with management of your perks and emotions. One of the joys of
the game is returning to a level that you previously thought impossible armed
with a new upgrade and completing it on a harder difficulty setting. The game
even rewards this diligence with unlocking new planets to return you to that
frustrated state.
As every avid videogame fan knows you’re not worth your salt
until you’ve picked up the sticks and challenged the other gamers out there to
a duel AI can only go so far as to challenge you before you need another human
to scheme against. Loading up the multiplayer screen I think that this is the
time to test my metal against whoever might be out there only to be told:
“computer says no”. It appears time and time again that no-where else in the
world is there someone else playing Planets
Under Attack at all on Xbox Live, both disappointing for myself and the
developers (Topware Interactive).
Returning to the campaign to grind out the rest of its 32
levels with mild disappointment that soon, once again, transfers to frustration
with the game finding new ways to infuriate me at the highest difficulty
levels. However, Planets Under Attack has
a way of making you stay with it no matter how hopeless the situation. The
controls are easy to learn so that even a beginner can understand the basic
mechanics of the game but there are some subtleties that need to be understood
before you can call yourself a master. Deciding when to build up a planet
against sending an armada to capture an enemy planet that looks vulnerable at
that time is a difficult choice and when a decision you have made comes back
with results you do genuinely have a strange wash of pride come over you for
something that was not all that complex to execute.
The interface of the game is clean and simple allowing the
player to absorb the important information about the fight going on around the
screen yet also take in some striking visuals that give the game a rather nice
comic book feel. Every so often a piece of space debris like a satellite or
lost spaceman will drift into view giving you a sense of scale to the battle
below which is a nice little touch.
With all the bad press about bankers and greed at the moment
it seems strange that a game would want to put the desire for money at the
centre of a storyline but the cast that drive the story are exciting and
engaging. They play out the story and the mysteries that the galaxy holds in
such a way that keeps you hooked, if you just finish this one last level you
might get another clue that’ll help you work out the big secret at the end. It
never really becomes much of an issue that you’re basically out to make as much
money as you can regardless of the consequences for the universe but it never
feels like an evil pursuit.
What at first seems like a simple point and click couch strategy game can, if the player wants to, turn out to be something that has the depth and breadth of a much more expensive title. The only problem is that it seems to be destined to be one of those Xbox titles that hardly anyone will ever play. At times it seems like I’m the only one. Their loss.
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