Your job in Anomaly: Warzone Earth is to lead elements of the fictional “14th Platoon” through the streets of Bagdad and Tokyo in the hopes of beating back an alien invasion - or maybe instead of an alien invasion, Earth just happens to be the ad hoc battleground for two other alien races intent on destroying one another. Either way, what are initially thought to be meteors strike the capitals of Iraq and Japan and all hell breaks loose. That’s pretty much the extent of the story in Anomaly: Warzone Earth, save for a last mission twist that isn’t really hinted at, but shouldn’t surprise anyone. There aren’t cut scenes or even really characters in a true sense. There are a few speaking roles that represent the coalition of forces engaged in battle with the 14th Platoon, but the writing and voice acting are as sparse and perfunctory as possible. The dialogue exists as a tool to inform the player of what is happening. Honestly I’m surprised they bothered with fully voiced dialogue since it doesn’t add much to the game. The reason the dialogue adds nothing to Anomaly: Warzone Earth is because the only reason anyone will play it is for the strategic problem-solving that goes into “solving” a mission. At the start of each level, the player is given a story-based goal and an urban battleground to negotiate. Goals range from simply making it across the battlefield with at least one unit left, to the destruction of specific structures or escorting friendly units. The game has a lot in common with the Command & Conquer series in its goals, level, and unit design. After you’re given your goal, you’re given a set amount of cash to purchase up to six units you can earn cash mid-mission to buy more units by chaining together defeated enemies into combos and by collecting the game’s resident “unobtainium” wherever and whenever you find it. These units fit into pretty standard “high armor, low attack” and “low armor, high attack” categories. The motley assortment of tanks, APCs, and high-damage missile units won’t surprise anyone, and even when later units are unlocked like flame tanks and shield projectors, you’re still not going to see anything particularly original. Besides vehicles you also get powers that you collect from fallen enemies or that are airdropped by allies. There are four of these: Repair, Smoke, Decoy, and Airstrike. Their names alone tell you everything you need to know about them.Īlong the way, you’ll face the basic enemies you’d expect like low damage “filler” units that outnumber every other turret on the battlefield, high damage area-of-effect turrets, lightning turrets whose beam arcs to multiple units, and so on and so forth. Here at least, the game shows some creativity by throwing some truly original and unexpectedly dangerous units at you that don’t even have to deal direct damage to be deadly.
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