Game Reviews: Creeper World 3: Abraxis

Creeper World 3: This Subtitle is Irrelevant Unless You're Interested in the Story is yet another of the Creeper World games, and with mild misgivings I think I'm going to pronounce it the best such. (If you haven't read the original reviews or haven't recently, you'll want to; I'm kind of assuming you'll have context, and reading those reviews is probably the quickest way to get it.)



The best part of it is definitely that it takes the most interesting new elements of the second game, anti-Creeper and destroying Creeper emitters, and integrates it into gameplay more similar to the first game (which I concluded after some time clearly had the superior gameplay experience, because I kept going back to it and yet never played the second after my review of it).

It even expands on this theme with "turnable" emitters, which are Creeper emitters that, if you cover them in anti-Creeper, will flip into friendly anti-Creeper emitters. Who knows why.



Early on, I was a bit concerned it would be too easy; as noted in my review of the original game, I often pushed the Creeper back methodically and "capped" emitters by placing cannons next to them. But I've always been more interested in "fun" than "difficulty" in games, so it wasn't really a problem, even if it initially seemed kinda true (behold the following post-battle screenshot as evidence).



They even made an element I'd always found questionable a bit better-balanced (but still usually easy) by making the anti-spore towers a bit less powerful but having the spores fire from clear locations instead of from off the map.



You might notice that in a couple of screenshots, there are glowing circles around some of my structures. This is because, in this game, when you destroy an emitter, it leaves behind a magic building-enhancing spot that augments the building's abilities. Ironically, I'm probably not showing their best use, because it took me a while to realize that other structures have much more impressive bonuses than the collectors do (or indeed, that they got bonuses at all). My favorite bonus is the one for the mortar, which makes it into a rapid-firing artillery cannon on steroids (though it's of questionable usefulness-the reactor's huge energy production bonus is much better in the long run). These bonuses arguably make things even easier; with the further addition of a "shield" building that repulses the Creeper, which feels a bit redundant with the anti-Creeper but is arguably more useful in some scenarios, there's a lot of missions I've played so far that felt like cake, even with the loss of the speed and storage structures (which are eventually replaced with research bonuses, which are usually superior anyway).

The designers have answers to the low difficulty; for instance, there's this sort of weird weedy stuff called Digitalis which functions as a sort of Creeper transmitter. The new tactics one has against the Creeper are basically all useless against the Digitalis; Creeper travels through it like guerrilla warfare tunnels, and it seems that things like the updated drone strikes are pretty useless, plus even one's new tricks aren't that useful; basically you can only shoot the Digitalis with Creeper in it, and that only empties the Creeper out of it rather than damaging the Digitalis itself. And like the Creeper itself, the Digitalis grows if it's connected to appropriate doohickeys (though I'm not clear on what they're called), meaning it can slip uphill and into your base faster than Creeper can.



It turns hunting the Digitalis centers, which can only be destroyed by the same short-ranged means as the emitters, into a slow grind, which is actually just the way I like it-I'd actually contemplated what I might add to the game to make it more interesting, and Digitalis is much like one of the things I'd contemplated.

Further slowing one down is that some maps are divided such that you can't stretch a base across them, and the only ways to overcome this are to have two bases (you can have up to three, but whether you have them depends on the mission) or with "Guppy" transports, which transport the resources of the game to remote locations.



Also resembling one of the things I'd contemplated as possible additions to the game are Runners; they're independent Creeper units that are supposed to do stuff to your buildings. Sadly, they're introduced in a mission where they're trapped on a distant area and pose exactly zero threat.



You might notice that these screenshots have pretty variable appearances; that'd be because the new engine supports zooming, which is good for focusing one's attention. It's also got notably better graphics, which isn't that important but still nice. And the music is great; it reminds me of the classic Total Annihilation soundtrack, still one of the all-time greats.

Then I hit the eighth mission, Experiment.

You have to rescue life pods-



-DID YOU JUST TURN THIS GAME I WAS REALLY ENJOYING INTO A TIME-BASED ESCORT MISSION?!



YOU DID.

Who likes escort missions? I don't get it.

Anyway, except for that one thing, this is a pretty great game.

Frikkin' escort missions.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Creeper World 2

Creeper World 2 is a sort-of sequel to Creeper World. (Read that review for some basic information. Also, note that the link is to a specific variant of the game and that there's probably a bunch of variants out there.)

It has a significant gameplay change from the original, although it also is quite similar.

The Creeper still flows downhill (most of the time-ironically, the screenshot represents a time where that isn't the case), but "downhill" is now, well, down.

That's right, it's no longer top-down but a sidescrolling game of sorts.

Your home base this time is a ship that has been tasked with wiping out the Creeper. Apparently, in the time since the first game humankind's technology and knowledge of the Creeper have both advanced, and instead of being forced to fight a battle for survival, you can destroy the Creeper's emitters, which had once been thought indestructible.

More features are added to gameplay, including "anti-Creeper" which you produce yourself, enemy drones, and others, while old features have been changed-for instance, your base now generates "wireless packets" so that you don't have to worry about connections, just relay devices called beacons. I have to admit that being able to make a "friendly" version of the Creeper is a great addition-it's much easier to track the danger level when you have your own field of control that cushions you. (As one might expect, Creeper and anti-Creeper are mutually annihilating.)

There are also variable gameplay paradigms. Probably the most entertaining of these is the "zero G" environment (an example of which is shown above) where the Creeper tends to move around chaotically and cling to objects instead of flowing down predictably.

While I don't know if I like this game as well or better than Creeper World (which I like quite a lot), it's a fun little game so far, and you could find plenty of worse games. I can recommend it.

-Signing off.

Game Review: Creeper World

Creeper World is a game that can be found in several forms; among these are online versions and a downloadable demo, and also a full version that can be purchased for about twenty dollars.

The crux of the game is that you have to fend off something called the Creeper. The Creeper is an amorphous purple something that is supposedly all but unstoppable and has wiped nearly all of humanity (on thousands or millions of worlds) out. In practice, it's far less terrifying. In fact, it's extremely similar to the "Smooze" from the My Little Ponies movie (I watched that with my sister once, and remember it considerably better than she does-it's probably the trauma), except that instead of driving it back with a bunch of magic flying horses, it's driven back by a massive series of fortifications and weapons systems that you must build.

Why do I make this comparison? Because the Smooze was hyped up in an extensive and annoying musical number as being unstoppable, and there's a rather extensive intro for the Creeper that plays it up similarly... and it just isn't true.

As a matter of fact, I've discovered that it's often rather easy to hold the Creeper back indefinitely. There are several key features of the game that impose difficulty on you, and there are several key features that let you fight off the Creeper with great efficacy.

First off, you need to control as much area as possible. The green area on the map represents the places that you have energy producing Collectors in; if you cluster them tightly, they're less efficient.

Second, on later maps (in the demo, you're introduced gradually to each new feature-I'm assuming that it essentially works simply as the earliest part of the full game) you must build SAMs, which are used to hold off Creeper spores, which periodically rain down and devastate areas they hit by filling those spots with Creeper.

Third, if Creeper reaches and touches one of your buildings, it starts very rapidly draining its health, sometimes taking it out instantaneously.

Fourth, if the Creeper has the high ground, your most efficient weapon, the Blaster, doesn't work on it.

However, that's just about all the bad news there is.

Taking territory from the Creeper is extremely easy if you have the high ground. It's harder without it, but not impossible.

The spores are less of a threat than they're made out to be-they're barely even a nuisance. They always come from the same direction, and you can dynamically place your weapon turrets, so you can just push forward with your SAMs after you get enough to protect your front line, and they'll cover your entire base.

There's no real defense against the Creeper killing your buildings if it touches them, but you can move your city (the big part of that network) in an emergency, so it's harder to be trapped than one might think. The Creeper moves like water, flowing downhill and filling in low-lying areas first, so it's very predictable, however. It also helps to separate the Creeper sources (those black circles deep in Creeper territory) from each other.

And finally, while the Blaster can't take the high ground, Mortars and Drones can, and they're far more potent per attack than the Blaster. The Mortar is basically the butter part of your bread and butter offensive, while the Drone is like a reusable nuke. (No pictures of the Drone, I'm afraid-I wasn't playing the demo level that had it.

One of the limitations of the basebuilding and energy supply of your base is that it happens in the form of "packets" that travel along the base's connection lines, and these packets have a definite, finite speed. There's a way you can improve this speed-constructing these red rhombus-shaped structures. It can really make an astounding difference...

...especially when you build a lot of them.

Initial inspection made me think that this game was a clone of The Space Game, but it actually has at least as much depth as the other game, and a more interesting enemy and game balance. According to the main page for the game, it also has something like 3.6 million game maps in the full version, so I'd say it has high replayability, too. I can definitely recommend playing the demo version, and if you decide you like it, I suspect that you could be playing the full version for the rest of your life and never run out of new maps to play.

-Signing off.