‘Anomaly 2’ takes a different view on tower defense
Tower-defense games aren’t my strong suit. For one, they tend to be a bit schizophrenic in pacing, being incredibly slow as each map loads up and you place your towers, then blitzkrieg-like as the round moves forward. Plus, the actual need to think ahead and to suffer the consequences of my actions? You can see my concern.
However, “Anomaly 2,” the sequel to the popular “Anomaly: Warzone Earth” by 11 bit studios, takes all that I find laborious in most tower-defense games and flips it all on its head. You see, it’s not so much tower defense anymore as its tower offense. Something completely new to me, you control your towers (basically armored vehicles with different abilities and armor capacities) in a spatial scene. You’re the one charging the standing towers and trying to take them down or simply survive their onslaught. (Most of the time, your goal is to make it alive to the final stretch, where you then have to kill everything with extreme prejudice.)
When you delve into the single-player campaign (we’ll touch on the multiplayer in a bit), the story that’s presented to you isn’t all the exciting or fresh, but it really just serves as a pretext for you to blow stuff up. Running about five hours depending on how quickly you move through the stages, “Anomaly 2” is played in column POV entirely (meaning you look down from above as you direct your units).
Click here to read the full review at TDN.com.
Four “Just blow it up!” stars out of five.
Editor’s note: This version of “Anomaly 2,” reviewed on the PS4, was provided courtesy of 11 bit studios.
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Above, a screenshot from “Anomaly 2.” (Photo credit: 11 bit studios)
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