Darwinia+ for Xbox Live Arcade is one of those types of games which can be quite hard to explain to people, however I find it best to describe it as Cannon fodder with RTS type elements, with a very retro tron feel.
Darwinia is essentially a cyberspace world populated by little cute Darwinians. Dr. Sepulveda, a computer scientist has made it his life’s work to create this new form of computer AI, the Darwinias, who not only learn and evolve over generations but also have a virtual soul. You arrive in the game just as a massive virus has broken out sending Darwinia into chaos, it’s up to you to eradicate all remnants of this virus and try to rebuild the Darwinia population which dwindles on the brink of extinction.
Whilst you cannot control the Darwinians directly you have various computer programs under your control. The simplest of these is your Squad (Deathsquad) which you can move around fire lasers, throw grenades and in the later levels they get more improvements.
You move your squad around with left thumbstick, whilst the right thumbstick controls the direction that you shoot your lasers, your basic twin stick shooter controls familiar with console games and because of this the controls feel very nice for what was a keyboard and mouse game.
Another basic unit is the engineer, these handy units seem to be straight from tron and they go around recapturing special points on the map, or collecting souls which is also another important feature of the game. You really get the feel of a whole ecosystem in Darwinia, everything whether your Darwinians or the evil computer virus drop souls behind when they die, your engineers can collect up these souls and bring them back to an incubator where they are turned back into your Darwinians, likewise however the virus creatures replicate by eating the souls.
The different levels of darwinia are connected via Trunk Ports, which in essence are little stargates. As you progress and get your engineers to control these trunk ports you open up the routes to the next levels all visible from the hub world, the centre of which is made up off all the souls that have floated up from the world, a soul repository.
The art style of Darwinia is very beautiful in it’s simplicity, and there is something about seeing your little 2D Darwinians march around over the world that give this game it’s uniqueness. It’s defiantly a case of less is more.
Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of Darwinia is also included with Darwinia+, where as on PC these games were seperate now they are rightfully together in one complete package.
Multiwinia is set a few years after the events of Darwinia in where a Darwinian civil war has broken out resulting in factions fighting over the lands. It plays slightly different than the main game as finally you can control your darwinins directly and send them around the map or into you opponents bases.
This multiplayer darwinia is much more hectic and fast paced than it’s solo campaign sibling, you can promote darwinians to send troops across the map, you can even promote them into little armies that march in unison creating defensive fronts (but are weak to rear attacks).
Whilst in multiplayer there are crates that drop around every 40 seconds (default) and if you send your darwinians over to capture one of these crate drops you get a special power-up which nearly always tips the balance in your favour. Such power ups include airstrike, engineer (picks up dead souls), squad (lazers & grenades) to much more devastating power-ups like Meteor shower and Nuke (Subs from Introversions Defcon launch warheads). There might of been an army of 400 darwinians holding that middle point, but oh look, now their all screaming and on fire, time to send in your troops and capture it for yourself!
There are five main game modes in Multiwinia these are:
Domination - Each player controls an initial spawn point, there are other incubators around the map you must fight to control as many spawn points as possible with the aim of completely dominating your opponents.
King of the Hill – There are special rings marked around the map that each player must control, for each ring you control you get 1 point per second, the winner is the person with most points at the end of the round.
Capture the statue – Statues spawn around the map and you need to send a lot of darwinians over in order to lift these heavy things back to base.
Rocket Race – You must fight for control of the solar panels in order to fuel your rocketship as fast as possible, then once refueled you must fill up your ship with 100 darwinians and launch! First person to do so wins.
Blitzkrieg – Each person has a main base and fights for control of specific flag points on the map, usually you cannot attack the main base until you control the flag point attached to it. You each start off with Armour Transport and Battle Cannons.
Final Thoughts
Introversion has quite the reputation for making charming games and Darwinia is no exception, there is something very charming and retro about this game whilst at the same time providing one of the most unique gameplay experiences your likely to play. The single player campaign of darwinia lasts around 8-10 hours then once you’ve had your fill with that you can put all your experiance and go head to head with other players in multiwinia giving the game lasting appeal, and there is something very satisfying about watching the little darwinians fight. The downsides of this game are so minuscule that they would really be considered nit-picking, and come down to not reading a bit of text Dr. Sepulveda says, which ultimately didn’t matter as he repeats it if you click on the object your having trouble with.
For 1200 Microsoft points you can be the owner of this charming addictive game, and I urge all of yo out there to try the trial and see for yourself. Thumbs Up!
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