It would seem the latest effort from Futuremark Game Studios is quite a departure from their previous releases. Rather than another attempt to take on the big names in the PC FPS arena or make a second casual title for iOS, Futuremark have produced Unstoppable Gorg, a multi-platform tower defence game IN SPACE.
Unstoppable Gorg is the video game that Ed Wood never made—everything from the terrible special effects and overuse of stock footage to the over-the-top scenery chewing by the cast give this game a genuinely campy, 50’s B-movie feel that’s just a ton of fun. The story, such as it is, is a surprisingly straightforward affair. Planet X has been discovered beyond Neptune and its inhabitants have lost no time in launching an armada against mankind. The player takes on the mantel of Captain Adam Huxley to lead humanity in the fight with the alien menace.
The concentric orbits provide tracks for your defence
On a gameplay level Unstoppable Gorg is fairly typical of the tower defence genre, with the player selecting from the 18 offensive or support towers to defend against waves of incoming enemies—but where it deviates from the conventional is in the tower placement. Around all of the objectives needing to be defended, there are a number of concentric rings or ‘orbits’, each with a limited number of fixed positions around the circumference of the orbit where ‘satellites’ can be placed. The revolutionary part of Unstoppable Gorg is that the player revolves (get it? ha!) these orbits in order to counter a new threat or to keep pounding away at an enemy that would otherwise escape. This aspect is especially important, and a core strategy, as the heavily restricted number of satellites combined with the creeps’ ability to attack from any direction force the player to make every weapon count—a static defence is no defence at all. Situational awareness is key when rotating an orbit, as keeping one enemy in range could well result in the player moving another turret out of a strategic choke point or put a vital generator at risk.
The satellite and upgrade menu
As well as the usual guns, cannons, and resource generators, the player must also construct research stations to earn upgrade tokens. These tokens are required to unlock upgrades to your satellites, and so failing to acquire them early will make the later levels quite a bit harder. The upgrade system itself is novel, as ‘using’ tokens only unlocks possible upgrades for the duration of the level, and after its completion expended tokens are returned to the player to be reused in subsequent levels. This gives the player a great deal of flexibilty in planning for each mission and encourages experimentation with the different satellites and their individual upgrade options.
Save the Earth!
Also unlocked by playing through the story mission are the Challenge and Arcade game modes. As you might imagine, challenge missions are more difficult versions of those completed in the story mode—with various modifiers on enemies, towers, orbits and objectives to really test the player. These missions are unlocked in a similar manner to the acquisition of research tokens, but by accumulating money rather than research. The Arcade mode is a survival game with never-ending waves of creeps attacking an objective defended by any of the tower types you have unlocked through progression in the story mode.
Another change from the usual tower defense formula is in the enemy creeps. Although they come in the standard flavours of small and fast/slow and tough, they cannot be funneled around a maze of towers. Instead, they unerringly follow one of several unblockable routes indicated to the player by a dashed line in the relevant faction’s colour. Creeps will also fire back at the players towers, making it vital to use the orbit rotation mechanic to keep your vulnerable resource generators out of harm’s way. Another interesting feature is the in-game encyclopedia, which records the various types of enemies encountered, along with their relative strengths and weaknesses, allowing the player to plan what weapons to deploy for maximal effect.
This is King Gorg. He's not happy.
So is it worth picking up? Undoubtedly, although the B-movie parody is the highlight of this production, Futuremark seem to understand they can’t make a game from that alone. A good game needs solid gameplay and Unstoppable Gorg delivers a competent if unspectacular result on that front. Despite Futuremark’s changes this doesn’t stray far from the tower defense formula. It’s perhaps not the most original gameplay out there, but it is polished to perfection—and in combination with all that delicious 50’s sci-fi cheese, Unstoppable Gorg is a very entertaining game.
You can pick up Unstoppable Gorg for $9.99 on PC/Mac via Steam or for $4.99 for iPad through the App store. An Xbox Live Arcade version is in the pipeline.
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