Anomaly 2 Review

A sequel to the successful Anomaly Warzone Earth continues with the same constructs from the original story. After the first game the aliens have returned again to attempt to annihilate the human race once more. The planet is now overrun by alien machines and the human race is on the verge of extinction. You play as a Commander with a convoy known as Yukon, you set out to recover, rebuild, and deploy a lost super weapon ‘Project Shockwave’ in hopes of taking down the aliens and regaining control. The story length is 14 chapters that recaps on the original plot and helps ease you into the gameplay, this is fantastic for newcomers but will bore returning players for a few chapters. The campaign length is roughly 6 hours, short but effective. It stops the game from feeling stale and long winded, throwing in an assortment of new units, machines and tactical situations helps tone down on the recycled encounters. It doesn’t deviate from the original games template and could have returning players feel a little bored playing the campaign. Returning players are really purchasing this game for the new multiplayer feature.

The gameplay is the game’s biggest strength and selling point, offering a unique strategy game, reverse tower defence real time strategy game. You control the commander and run freely across the map but get close to enemies and they will attack you. The convoy moves automatically at a set path but is dynamic. You use the scroll wheel to zoom out of the level and into a map showing the default path that the game starts with. From this you have the option to change the route across the multiple roads and paths that are available. This gives the player the choice in how they want to approach the fighting with the different type of machines they have, going into the paths with the most enemies, least or a mix also lets the player to take any approach they want. This is a tower offence game meaning you control the convoy past the alien ‘tower’ machines and destroy them, when an enemy ‘tower’ is destroyed they can drop items that allow you use as power-ups.

The new multiplayer mode is what most fans are looking forward to with the release of this game. The multiplayer puts a player as the convoy and a player for the alien ‘towers’. The defence-oriented aliens play more like traditional tower defence games, as you must gather resources, create chokepoints, and unlock new towers to succeed. Matches can be difficult to find but once matched it is a very fast-paced game, the campaign is recommended before jumping into the multiplayer, and it acts as a very good tutorial and eases newcomers into the fast-paced multiplayer.

The game has nice improvements over the original and with the inclusion of multiplayer makes the cost of this game seem more viable when compared to the original. The graphical improvements are a huge step up with some stunning environments and high levels of detail and the multiplayer is the games strongest point. The biggest weakness is that the game don’t deviate from the original’s template and can start to feel repetitive with a story mode that lacks replay value. The game is a good purchase for newcomers and users who like playing RTS games online, it offers a unique take of Tower Offence and RTS games with a nice hybrid of both.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.