Darwinia (PC CD)

There are only a handful of unit types you can create and there is an equally small unit count. The little green Darwinians are not able to be controlled directly but the Darwinians have no obvious unit cap. On some levels you have thousands of the little troopers battling for your cause!

You are able to take direct control of some units and the one you will use the most is the "Squad". These are the Darwinian SAS, tooled up with lasers and variable secondary weapons you control them to wade into the nasty viral infected areas. You have to control them because left on their own they are totally rubbish. Some people have been complaining about the poor AI in the game, I think in this case it was done on purpose to make sure that you take control of the squads yourself rather than just pointing them in the general direction and leaving them to it.

-- Graphics --
Reading the developer's website reveals that the game's fractal landscape was decided early on because it meant that the company did not need to hire a graphic artist to create textures. A brave decision in the modern games market aiming for photo-realism, but one that pays off. The blocky "sprites" and fractal landscape fit in well with the retro plot of a bunch of unsold 1980s era games machines being networked together into a grid computer. Thinking about it, I wonder if they got their entire inspiration from the game "Virus"!?

Even though the graphics are retro, they are not basic. There are fab lighting effects, cool particle effects for explosions and a really smooth feel to the controls.

-- Sound --
The music in the game is, in a word, great. A lot of effort has been made to get some haunting music in some of the start up screens that works especially well.

The sound effects in the game are pretty clever too. The sound that a virus worm thingie makes when it is shot is satisfying. It is a kind of electronic scream. Nice. All of the other sounds are similar to those that you would have heard in a game 20 years ago but subtly modernised.

-- System --
I played it on a Radeon 9700 Pro at 1024x768 resolution with an Athlon 2400+ processor max detail. Aside from the last level when there was a *lot* going on near the end I had no problems at all with slowdowns. The way I was directing my little Darwinians into enemy guns WWI "over the top lads" style I am not surprised there were slowdowns!

-- Overall --
Buy it! You will not regret it. I recommended it to a friend and he emailed me a week or so later complaining that he could not think of anything else until he had completed the game. It gets to you like that.

I originally played the demo level and thought the game was OK, but not fab. Thinking I may have missed something I read a few online reviews. I think I did miss something. I took a risk and ordered the game anyway. I am so glad I did. If you have played the demo and written off the game, I urge you to take the risk and buy the game anyway.

The quirkiness of the game is summed up with the loading screens. Every time you start the game you get a different loading screen. There are about 6 or 7 of them in total, each one is very good. I won't give them away but if you used to own a ZX Spectrum you will be in for some entertaining treats!

There are some down points to the game that do not effect the score but are worth mentioning. Firstly the game is a bit short, there are only about 9 missions and you could complete the game in about 10 hours or so if you really got the hang of it. The way the mission page is laid out gives the impression that the world you are saving is only one node in a very large tree, so perhaps we will get some bonus missions (please!)? The game is also moddable so hopefully there will be some good fan based levels too.

There is no multiplayer at all. A good (green) vs. evil (red) skirmish would be fun but alas is not included.

Stability - the game lasted very well up until the last level. During which the game crashed a few times. Not good. Fortunately it does not lose much when it crashes but it still annoying.

Overall though, you have to try this game for yourself. I did and I love it.