=== PC Game Review -- Infested Planet - RTS Tower Defense - 10/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
Today I bring you Infested Planet by Rocket Bear Games.

Released: March 6, 2014
Price: $17.49 CAD
Genre: RTS / Tower Defense

This game has a good number of very positive reviews on Steam... and for good reason; I was pleasantly surprised by this title. I don't normally go out looking for games which include the tag "Tower Defense" in them because quite honestly, I usually find them to be incredibly boring and dull; in my opinion, most Tower Defense games get old very quickly usually because there isn't enough to do as the game progresses or because the game eventually comes down to figuring out how to optimally build for the scenario to get the 3 stars available on each level. It's difficult to describe just how nice it is to find a game of this type where that finally isn't such a big problem.

Gameplay:
Infested Planet comes with a nice campaign that introduces all the new mechanics of the game one at a time from new units, to new buildings, to new powers. This picture below shows the campaign progress which branches into different mission types.

Additionally there are some weekly challenges which can be done for a score to get a rank matched up against other players around the world. These challenges also have different mission types such as exterminating the map as quickly as possible for the highest score, or surviving as long as possible.

Much of the gameplay revolves around the squad units available with each mission. From left to right (starting on the right of the building in the picture and going counter-clockwise) you'll see the different unit types: Minigun, Officer, Scout, Flame, Sniper, Shotgun, Rifle. You can imagine by the name what each is capable of doing and what they're likely best at, but they all have their different uses in different situations; I found that many of the missions can be completed with a combination of Officers, Rifles, and Shotguns.

So, at first glace one might wonder how this is a tower defense game if you're using a squad of troops? Well, the gameplay has much to do with capturing and defending resources and bases. As seen below, there are hives which spawn alien creatures which must be defended against, destroyed, and captured. Each base point unlocks more points which can be spent on more marines (Rifles by default) and base defenses. Each marine has an increasing cost as more are hired and each one can have more points spent on equipment packs (such as a shotgun or a flamer) which changes their unit types.

As more points are captured the difficulty tends to increase as well. Yes, more points are unlocked for a more powerful squad or more powerful base defenses, but the other hives across the map may respond by mutating for a different unit type of their own (such as a ranged unit or one that explodes) or may start spawning MORE units to fight back against.

Enemies across the map have defenses of their own either to defend their hives or to defend resource crates which can be brought back to any base location for additional usable points.

Graphics:

The art-style here as you've seen is very familiar to the flash-based games of the past mixed with what I consider to be a hand-painted look. I can confirm it runs quite well and looks very nice on the eyes; nothing is too bright or dark or hard on the eyes and all actions respond very well to the inputs. 

Replayability:

I wouldn't normally think of a tower defense game to be very replayable... only because once you've completed a scenario there isn't much use in playing it again unless there's some type of achievement to be unlocked or a higher score to be achieved. Luckily there are weekly challenges available which give at least a weekly reason to reopen the game and compete against other players.

Also available are a couple DLCs - Trickster's Arsenal and Planetary Campaign. I haven't had the luxury of being able to play either of these myself, but given the opportunity, I would gladly open Infested Planet once again to try out the new content. Planetary Campaign seems to include a new procedural campaign creating a different experience each time. This is super interesting to me and might just be the reason I put more money into Infested Planet by Rocket Bear Games even though it was released a couple years ago.

SUMMARY:

I love RTS games and the real-time strategy portion of Infested Planet is very nicely done along with the Tower Defense aspect of it. I am in fact so happy with how it meshes together that... especially because I'm not normally a fan of tower defense games... I'm happy to give Infested Planet 10/10. This is probably a game I'll be coming back to in the future once I get my hands on the available expansions and you can bet if that happens that you'll see it on my livestream over on Twitch.

~ DaemonVirus

Pocket Troops - Mobile Review - 7/10

     Pocket Troops is a game for mobile devices in which you train a variety of troops to battle other players across the world.

     This game features four different forms of "currency"; Money, stars, coins, and time. Money and stars are earned by winning battles with your troops either against the AI for smaller amounts, or by winning battles against other players. Coins are earned by watching ads as they are available which can easily be done without too much effort while doing something else. Time is spent by training troops; as they increase in level, it takes more time for their training to finish.

     There are six types of troops which can be found in the game and a bonus troop which can be recruited once.

     - Sniper: This unit does high damage with a high chance to land a critical strike with each shot. Their downside is a low amount of health, making them easy to kill with splash damage. Their high damage however, makes them a critical unit in most any group.

     - Shotgun: This unit is capable of doing a large amount of damage, but has low range. Most battles tend to end before the Shotgun can get into range, however this unit has easiest access to grenades which can still make a large impact in each battle.

     - Assault: This unit is your standard assault weapon-carrying unit who gets to the front of a fight quickly. If any unit is going to die in a fight, this one will be it because he'll be the easiest target to hit. The Assault unit becomes quite important at later levels as it has access to the taunt ability, giving the rest of your group a greater chance to survive.

     - Assassin: This unit has abilities to get in close to the opponent's group quickly which can cause incredible amounts of havoc. However, if you lack the proper amount of training or abilities, the Assassin tends to fall flat in usefulness.

     - Commando: This unit uses machine guns with low accuracy, but many shots in the same turn. The Commando can do lots of damage in one turn without the need for critical hits, but tends to fall off when there are more targets to shoot at.

     - Explosives: This unit is a high-damage splash damage character with low health. Similar to the Sniper, the Explosives unit seems to be a pretty important unit when needing to do lots of damage. The downside is how easy it can be to damage your own units if in close-combat.

     - El Commandante (Bonus): This unit I think tends to take the place of the Assault unit. Someone to get to the front of a fight quickly and take the brunt of the retaliation. I'm not really a fan of the high cost required to unlock this character, though it's not impossible without buying the coins using your real money. When using this unit in battle, you get increased money and star rewards for winning battles.

     Things to keep a player interested in playing on include daily islands with a few battles to play each day and a sort of tournament kind of thing which starts anew at the beginning of each week. While these help, as time goes on, the game does tend to get a little bit dry in my opinion.

     The biggest reason the game gets boring over time I think is a lack of differing strategies in the game. While there are some changes to your group you can make depending on what enemies you're attacking, the general strategies tend to remain the same and the biggest factor into whether a battle is won is really more dependent upon the levels of the units than any type of strategy.

     So I'll give this game 7/10. It's a good game, it kept me busy for a long amount of time. I think it just needs more diverse options for strategies to make it a REALLY amazing game.

~ Kyle