BATTLECRAFT?
GAMEPLAY:
Nnooo is bringing us a game that mixes the RTS (real time strategy) with TD (tower defense) bringing a game with an original mechanic that works great, still I should say if you lack of patience, maybe this game isn’t for you (or any strategy in general).
There’s a lot of stuff I can talk about this title, but I will try to keep it short: the core idea of the game is to use your resources to buy units, with the objective of beating your enemy. Everything is made on the go, in real time, so you need to be careful in order to not do mistakes.
Cubemen 2 features a total of seven different modes, being all of them variable for the offline single player and the latest five also for the online game:
- Defense: You need to protect your base from waves of enemies. Beating enemies will allow you to win Cubes, that means more units you will be able to buy.
- Rescue: Here you need to protect citizens from enemy units meanwhile they’re moving to your base.
- Skirmish: You need to defend your base from waves of enemy mobs meanwhile you use yours to attack other player’s bases. Each player has a determined number of lives, once out your base is destroyed you lose. The game will end only if one player’s base is left or the Mobs are out of waves.
- C.T Flag: Each player has a flag, and your mission is stole other player’s flags meanwhile you defend yours, and also the units you send to stole other’s flags.
- Territory: Your goal is to get as much of the map possible. In order to capture a tile, you need to make an unit walk over it. The winner is the one who owns most of the tiles of the map.
- King of the Hill: Here you need to capture an area of the map and defend it as long as possible. The player with most units on the hill will own it, where time will be earned. The one with most time at the end of the game wins.
- Defector: You need to create one of every unit type. If an unit is killed, it joins the team of the player who killed it. The first one to control all the units wins.
Like I did mention, they’re units you can buy (and also upgrade). They’re ten different types of units you can use, being:
- Grill the Grunt: With a low price and health, this shooting unit is able to attack an move fast.
- Flint the Flamer: With a flame trowel, it can easily destroy smaller enemies and set them on fire until they die. Still, their attack don’t do a lot of damage but have a good range.
- Larry the Lighting: Slow down the enemies shooting an ice lighting laser. It also damames the enemy.
- Moty the Mortar: Shoot mortar rounds that explodes into bits of shrapnel, doing a good damage in a long range.
- Ricky the Rockets: With a good health, this unit is able to shoot homing rockets at enemies.
- Laslo the Laser: With a high price and health, this unit shoots a deadly lasers doing a good damage.
- Sid the Sniper: The classic sniper, being the more expensive one, its low health and speed is compensated with a extreme range shoots.
- Waly the Wall: It can turn into a wall being able to block the enemy patch. It can be used once.
- Milo the Mine: Like Waly, but it will convert into a mine and get activated once an unit touch it.
- Ernie the Engineer: Being slow, he can use explosives to clear walls and mines.
The game is limited to six players and the online can be filled with CPU bots. They’re plenty of options that can change the experience when playing, that doesn’t just adjust the difficulty but also the type of strategy you will need.
The controls of the game are pretty well done, and it won’t be hard to learn to use: with the L stick you will rotate the camera, with R stick you can move it, the Control Pad to zoom the game and the rest the touch-screen of the Gamepad is required to play.
If you think the game will stop here, you’re in serious problems. Cubemen 2 offers a lot of replay value that add the game duration, including 59 achievements, a level editor with the option to share creations with another players (not only Wii U ones, also Steam, OS and Android ones) where they can be downloaded. The level editor has a lot of options allowing a big variety of different designs, still they’re a few limits still the size of the map can be incredibly big.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
The game looks great, and it will be hard to be tired of the graphics. Yes, everything is based on cubes, but they are 22 different skins for your characters (plus nine different colors variations) and 27 different level themes to use. The experience is really smooth even when there’s a big quantity of elements in the screen.
The soundtrack of the game is quite limited, but they’re great and the sounds effects are also good. A bigger variety of songs or being able to hear our own music with the SD card would be a great option considering the vast replay value of the game.
PRESENTATION:
The presentation of the game is excellent, for not saying perfect. Including a good tutorial and some explanations, a good interface, a lot of different settings for the game (both the game itself and the sessions), great replay value, a good quantity of content, and I can continue like this saying how well done it’s.
CONCLUSION:
As a real time strategy and as a tower defense game, it works great and offers a lot of content without asking a high price for it. If you love the genre, the customization options and/or compete with others, this is a must have for the system. A good example of the good quality side of the eShop.
