With a hefty price tag, this game has a lot of pressure on it.
After the first seven levels, I have to say that it doesn’t justify it. There’s simply too much I don’t like. I’m a huge EDF fan, but this feels like a poor man’s Insect Armageddon.
Front end:
The menus feels very clunky at first. It’s hard to understand what is going on. They become more navigable after a while, but they look a bit cheap. Not EDF cheap. Just cheap. The customisation options are ok, but visually they look 360 era.
Missions:
These are very short. The play areas aren’t huge. So far, they’re classically EDF (kill em all). What I don’t connect with is the lack of a sense of context. You just get ferried from location to location. While that seems, on the face of it, a lot like an Japanese EDF, in this game it doesn’t feel right. I don’t know if it’s because the locations aren’t familiar. IA has a decent sense of missions connecting together via checkpoints, and leading you deeper and deeper into a city. Here, you get dropped off in a random place, on a small map, and kill stuff. It doesn’t feel joined up and epic. The tiny maps mean you can’t do the age-old EDF tactic of retreating for miles and firing.
Gameplay
Oh man. So much wrong.
The buttons are clumsily mapped. Fire is R2, but switch weapon is triangle. R1 is this daft mini boost thing that’s meant to act as the roll, but feels very laboured and ineffective. Instead of switching weapons, I keep boosting straight at the enemy.
There’s an option to use grenades or health items manually (which effects your gold accumulation at the end of the mission) using L1 and d-pad. It just feels clunky. I’ve used it accidentally several times, yet when I actually wanted to use it, it didn’t work.
The guns are piss poor. The rifles are ok (bearing in mind they’re early weapons) but lack a certain panache in killing the ants. You don’t feel like you KNACK them, just fell them. The sound effects don’t add to the sense of mowing them down. The rocket launcher is decent, but the grenade launcher is appalling. It’s slow and has zero range. The explosions from it are rather lovely, however.
You get pick ups, but not in crates. They’re like these coloured gem splats. Green restores your health. Other colours seem to collect weapons and orbs that buy stuff. There’s a 30 second countdown at the end of the mission so you can collect stuff, which is a nice touch.
You don’t just find weapons. You then have to unlock them using cash (from gold) and one of three gem colours. Similarly, you have to buy health upgrades. No armour here.
If you get knacked, then your team have access to 5 regens. If you regen before a timer counts down, you get punished with a health bar reduction. This can’t be restored back to its original limit in that mission, even with on-field health pick ups. Once the last regen has been used, if you die, the mission counts down to an end, even if the other player is still alive. What the hell is that all about? I must be missing something there. If the survivor rushes to the fallen comrade, the game tells you to revive them. Is there a button for this? Is there ****e.
You have access to a single use overdrive per mission, which basically increases your speed and fire rate. It’s very useful and totally necessary to get through. This game is bloody hard. Even on easy, we got knacked several times. The difficulty spikes are very early, and the only tactics we could use to win (due to the small maps and dodgy weapons) involved using overdrive at a premium moment. In some sense, it feels like this game will be a good challenge. But in others it feels like a one note pony.
Enemies
The ants are like IA. Squat and underwhelming. The spiders have a massive leap with very very odd jizz. They look menacing but lack presence somehow. They are accompanied by annoying mini spiders who do kamikaze runs at you. These giant mantis things look great, but they are over-powered in speed and projectiles. They also don’t ‘feel’ hefty enough. The robots are ok. The sound effects of everything - guns and impact and death throes - don’t really help the game feel blistering or weighty or epic. These robot people pod carrier things look really cheap. Not B movie EDF cheap, just tacky in an unfun way. You never really feel like you’re involved in repelling an epic invasion with huge running battles and massive game areas. You just feel ditched in small zones to take out ok-ish enemies featuring ropey sound effects and an imbalanced difficulty progression.
Visuals
A mixed bag. They don’t look EDF cheap. They look IA-lite. Some are really nice, but others are horrid. When I consider some of the designs in IA, they aren’t even that good. The levels are quite sparse and the aliens/insects lack body.
It feels like I’m on a major downer about this game. I want to like it. I really do. I’m just so underwhelmed. Maybe after more time on it, the controls will click, the missions will feel like compact gems, and the weightier guns will add some meat to the gameplay.
Please.
After the first seven levels, I have to say that it doesn’t justify it. There’s simply too much I don’t like. I’m a huge EDF fan, but this feels like a poor man’s Insect Armageddon.
Front end:
The menus feels very clunky at first. It’s hard to understand what is going on. They become more navigable after a while, but they look a bit cheap. Not EDF cheap. Just cheap. The customisation options are ok, but visually they look 360 era.
Missions:
These are very short. The play areas aren’t huge. So far, they’re classically EDF (kill em all). What I don’t connect with is the lack of a sense of context. You just get ferried from location to location. While that seems, on the face of it, a lot like an Japanese EDF, in this game it doesn’t feel right. I don’t know if it’s because the locations aren’t familiar. IA has a decent sense of missions connecting together via checkpoints, and leading you deeper and deeper into a city. Here, you get dropped off in a random place, on a small map, and kill stuff. It doesn’t feel joined up and epic. The tiny maps mean you can’t do the age-old EDF tactic of retreating for miles and firing.
Gameplay
Oh man. So much wrong.
The buttons are clumsily mapped. Fire is R2, but switch weapon is triangle. R1 is this daft mini boost thing that’s meant to act as the roll, but feels very laboured and ineffective. Instead of switching weapons, I keep boosting straight at the enemy.
There’s an option to use grenades or health items manually (which effects your gold accumulation at the end of the mission) using L1 and d-pad. It just feels clunky. I’ve used it accidentally several times, yet when I actually wanted to use it, it didn’t work.
The guns are piss poor. The rifles are ok (bearing in mind they’re early weapons) but lack a certain panache in killing the ants. You don’t feel like you KNACK them, just fell them. The sound effects don’t add to the sense of mowing them down. The rocket launcher is decent, but the grenade launcher is appalling. It’s slow and has zero range. The explosions from it are rather lovely, however.
You get pick ups, but not in crates. They’re like these coloured gem splats. Green restores your health. Other colours seem to collect weapons and orbs that buy stuff. There’s a 30 second countdown at the end of the mission so you can collect stuff, which is a nice touch.
You don’t just find weapons. You then have to unlock them using cash (from gold) and one of three gem colours. Similarly, you have to buy health upgrades. No armour here.
If you get knacked, then your team have access to 5 regens. If you regen before a timer counts down, you get punished with a health bar reduction. This can’t be restored back to its original limit in that mission, even with on-field health pick ups. Once the last regen has been used, if you die, the mission counts down to an end, even if the other player is still alive. What the hell is that all about? I must be missing something there. If the survivor rushes to the fallen comrade, the game tells you to revive them. Is there a button for this? Is there ****e.
You have access to a single use overdrive per mission, which basically increases your speed and fire rate. It’s very useful and totally necessary to get through. This game is bloody hard. Even on easy, we got knacked several times. The difficulty spikes are very early, and the only tactics we could use to win (due to the small maps and dodgy weapons) involved using overdrive at a premium moment. In some sense, it feels like this game will be a good challenge. But in others it feels like a one note pony.
Enemies
The ants are like IA. Squat and underwhelming. The spiders have a massive leap with very very odd jizz. They look menacing but lack presence somehow. They are accompanied by annoying mini spiders who do kamikaze runs at you. These giant mantis things look great, but they are over-powered in speed and projectiles. They also don’t ‘feel’ hefty enough. The robots are ok. The sound effects of everything - guns and impact and death throes - don’t really help the game feel blistering or weighty or epic. These robot people pod carrier things look really cheap. Not B movie EDF cheap, just tacky in an unfun way. You never really feel like you’re involved in repelling an epic invasion with huge running battles and massive game areas. You just feel ditched in small zones to take out ok-ish enemies featuring ropey sound effects and an imbalanced difficulty progression.
Visuals
A mixed bag. They don’t look EDF cheap. They look IA-lite. Some are really nice, but others are horrid. When I consider some of the designs in IA, they aren’t even that good. The levels are quite sparse and the aliens/insects lack body.
It feels like I’m on a major downer about this game. I want to like it. I really do. I’m just so underwhelmed. Maybe after more time on it, the controls will click, the missions will feel like compact gems, and the weightier guns will add some meat to the gameplay.
Please.
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