Darwinia + review

Darwinia+ is an amalgamation of Darwinia and its sequel Multiwinia so we Xbox gamers get the best of both worlds. Dr Sepulueda has created a digital world but it is about to be wiped out by a virus so he has called you in to help remove it and rebuild Darwinia, which is populated by little green stick men called Darwinians. In single player your aim is to travel Darwinia, helping free the Darwinians and guide them to safety with the only tools ( upgradable over time) available on behalf of the good Dr. You will first experience the Squad, a group of up to 6 laser toting hard nuts that you control via the Left Stick and fire with the Right Stick in any direction. The Squads are used to clear the path for later units of any traces of the Virus. Your other main unit is the Engineer, this is controlled by point and click and is used to hack into buildings like radars and incubators, when not in use they will scour the battlefield looking for souls to collect and then put them into the captured incubators to create more Darwinians. Most of the objectives are simple capture this or save that and are detailed on the menu screen but there are a few moments where you have no idea what to do, the 2nd level asked me to save 50 Darwinians, leaving me to spend a very boring hour clicking around randomly until I realised they have to gather around a tree? Whilst they are digital wonders, the Darwinians are pretty thick as they only listen to one of their own, so to get them to move around you need to promote some of their numbers to Officers who you can then command theDarwinians to safe passage. Darwinians are relatively weak so great care must be taken with them, they can be later upgraded to hold lasers or grenades but be careful with your choice as they do have a tendency to blow each other up. Dotted all around the maps is the Virus, which comes in the form of giant creatures like the Virii that are worm like and gather in swarms, Centipedes are huge segmented creatures that split up and are a nightmare to kill and the Jellyfish that drop eggs for the Virii to fertilize with digital souls from downed enemies and Darwinians. Multiplayer sets you up as in control of one coloured Darwinian faction, this is set years after the first game and since then civil war has broken out. This time you are in direct control of Darwinians in up to four player action depending on the map. There is a good selection of game modes including Domination where you kill everything, King of the Hill which has you capturing and holding zones, Capture where you need to drag a statue to your base, Rocket Race where you capture solar panels to fuel a rocket and the Blitzkrieg mode which involves you capturing the flag at various points around the map. Whilst the Darwinians pack lasers this time around you can also upgrade them to Officers to send out additional commands like a formation to offer more fire power. There are also power-ups that fall randomly, capture these and you could be rewarded with a minigun, armoured transport or even an airstrike. Most RTS games struggle with the conversion from PC to console (EA still can't get it 100% with Red Alert) but Introversion Software manage to keep the game so simple that there are no real issues, with creating units as easy as pressing up on the d-pad. The camera is fixed for most of the time on the action with it changing to free mode to look around and command the engineers and officers, making the game relatively hassle free. Still unique after all these years offering action and RTS all in one well made game, Darwinia+ is a must have XBLA game.

Rating: 9.5/10

Please register or login to post comments