Anomaly2
Posted: 5/25/2013 12:00:00 AM
By: analogfight

        Well here I sit, kinda sad but more mad. Mad at myself, I like a tower defense game I never thought it would happen but it has. Congrats 11 Bit Studio you made something awesome out of something I hate. You added some zip to an otherwise boring idea. Anomaly 2 is much like Anomaly. Some updates have happened and some new weapons make a grand entrance, but over all it’s not far from the original.

        I like that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I caught myself many times strategizing and thinking about the most effective way around. Never has a tower defense game sucked me in. Anomaly 2 let me feel like I was really there and that the path the army took was up to me. Being able to strategize and then make changes to the path on the fly really made you think instead of just brute force attacking.

        As I got more comfortable with the mech again and their specializations the game got a lot more interesting. Anomaly 2 starts out a bit slow, and I was confused about how it felt like the tutorial came after the first mission. On about the 4th mission I was completely bought in to the story and also the game as a whole. So many great things about this game can be said, but one of the big things for me how clean it looked.

        Visuals in a game to me are important, and not because of graphics cards and how many polygons it can render. Visuals to me show how much attention to detail was put into the game. There was a lot of time put into this, and it’s the simple things that make this for me. The clean lines in strategy mode, the static that appears when there is a “real fire fight”. Those little things that drug me in just a bit more and made it that much harder to put down to right this review. I just feel like everyone over at 11 bit cared about this game, and put a lot of hard work into it.

        I haven’t played multiplayer much but I did sneak in a few hours and holy damn is it fun. I really liked how you spec yourself out, and how it leveled up. Multiplayer is offense vs defense, you play as the alien towers or as the humans attacking the towers. I ended up enjoying the multiplayer much more than the campaign

        Ok, so I have talked about how awesome this game is for a bit, and it really is. I like the ideas, and the story telling and blah blah blah. What I hate about this game is I feel like they played it safe, they care about their product and it is a good one, but it could have been more. I think that it is too similar to the first Anomaly, yes there is a new polish and the multiplayer is awesome, but it didn’t keep me sucked it. The story gets redundant and the missions begin to remind you of other missions. I wanted this game to keep me locked in for hours but it doesn’t do that. What it does do is remind me that I can love tower defense game, and yes I know this is more tower offense but still, this game is great for that quick reminder that games can take a simple idea and turn it into something amazing. This game will stay in my library for a long time to come, and will be dusted off and fired up when I want that hour of tower destruction…or tower rescue. Seriously though the destruction is wayyyy better than the rescue.
        
        Anomaly 2 is a great continuation to the series and I like it…I really do. I just can’t play it that along. If you need a filler game and love to blow shit up then this is your game and for 15 bucks on steam you really can’t beat it.