Does this tower offense sequel manage to impress and improve its predecessor?

Mar 11, 2013 15:25 GMT  ·  By

Anomaly: Warzone Earth surprised a lot of people when it came out back in 2011, as rookie developer 11 Bit Studios managed to turn the tower defense genre on its head by delivering a tower offense experience.

Now, after releasing the game onto a variety of other platforms, the Polish studio is working on Anomaly 2, a full-fledged sequel that promises even better graphics, new units, new options, and, for the first time, a multiplayer mode.

We've had a chance to try out an early version of the game and check out some of the big changes in the single-player campaign.

Does Anomaly 2 manage to continue the tower offense sub-genre or should it be left to fend off the aliens without any help? Let's find out.

Anomaly 2 kicks off years after the events of the first game and the squad of eager British troops is replaced with a rag-tag team of American survivors that are trying to find a powerful weapon against the aliens.

While the core of the game is the same, as you play a commander on the field that leads a convoy of troops along a path that can be determined by your own strategy, there are quite a few changes.

First up are the units, which are completely new and much more sci-fi. What's more, they're also capable of transforming on the fly. You can turn a Warhound that uses a minigun into an Inferno Hound by double-clicking on the unit, which can then use a flamethrower in confined spaces.

Besides regular powers, like a repair or decoy, there are now new technologies at your fingertips, including an EMP blast that disables towers until they're fired upon.

While your arsenal has been improved, there are also new types of units as well as upgraded versions of previous enemies that will require a bit of smart thinking to overcome.

Micromanaging your units is crucial and deciding when to go into a heavily defended area in order to snag some credits or when to skip a whole tricky section can be quite tough.

Unfortunately, there are still a few problems, as the commander can get stuck on certain pieces of the environment and it could have been useful to add a special system to assign priority targets, as some units would focus on shooting money caches instead of taking out enemy towers, or vice versa.

Even so, Anomaly 2 is looking gorgeous, especially in terms of graphics, but also when it comes to gameplay, so look forward to its release this summer.

Until then, check out a gameplay video above.

Anomaly 2 Preview Screenshots (12 Images)

Anomaly 2
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