Invasion - The Grey Day

.: By: Shaun Beane :: Device used: iPAQ H3650 :: August 30, 2001 :.

Ever been abducted by aliens, but can't get anybody to believe you? Do you believe that some day aliens will attack earth? Ever wonder what would happen if they did? Well, with Invasion, you can live a fantasy world where you are in charge of protecting earth from the attacking aliens because you are the only person who knows how to defeat them. Another eagerly awaited release, Invasion is one of the newest high quality games to hit the market and apparently the only real-time strategy game available for the Pocket PC.

Installation is a standard ActiveSync install. I installed it on my compact flash card and have had no problems. Registration is just a registration code - nothing too complicated.

The load time is fairly long, which seems to be a standard feature with most new games - load times are getting longer and longer. Anyway, it took a solid 15 seconds to load on my iPAQ. After the initial load, you'll be presented with the "story". It's actually a fairly interesting little story, so give it a read - it's not required to play the game, however. My first gripe is the translation! Again, another developer who can't seem to spend time or resources getting a decent translation.

New game, Introduction, Load game, Free game, High scores, Options, Credits, and Quit are the items making up the main menu. Options include: music on/off, sound on/off, volume, game speed and scroll speed. Credits just give you the developer's names and the game website.

Once you have decided to begin a new game you get to choose which side you are on - Humans or Aliens. Type your name in and select a difficulty level (easy, normal, hard, nightmare or you can't win) and you're on your way. You'll be presented with a complete debriefing of your mission, then a summary of the mission objectives that you must complete to finish the level.

I think you'll find the first couple of levels pretty basic and very easy to complete. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it gives you time to get comfortable with the controls. Each level will definitely get harder. The AI in Invasion is very good. You can tell a lot of time was spent getting the AI to work effectively, not just a random move generator.

The game play screen is very well laid out. The screen is a portrait top view of the level you are currently on. The number in the upper left corner of the screen is your money. 

In the lower left hand corner of the screen, you are given an overview of the whole area. At first you can only see a very limited area around your "camp". The rest of the area is blacked out until you move your men or equipment. As you move around the area, the overview will be filled in with the detail. Use the overview (mini map) to move your men or equipment somewhere quickly. This mini map is basically your pan and zoom window.

The remaining controls on the screen are at the bottom of the screen. These controls allow you to group men and equipment together; this makes it easy to split up your men and equipment into squadrons. To the right of these controls is a small window (I'll call it the selection window) that will have a variety of options, depending on what you are doing or what you have selected. If you don't have anything selected, all you'll see is the menu button. The menu gives you the options to review your mission objectives (great for those of us with short memories), save the game (9 slots available), load a game, or change the game options (sound, music, volume, game speed, and scroll speed).

On the first level, all you really have to do is select your men, go find the aliens and kill them. The stylus makes selecting a breeze. Just "click and drag" to draw a box around the men you want to select. To move them, move your stylus to the edge of the screen as if you were pointing to a piece of the land just off the screen. Where ever your stylus touches, your men will move (if you have them selected). When you come across aliens your men will automatically attack. You can control which aliens they attack by clicking on the aliens. I found it effective to have all of my men attack one alien at a time. Even though the other aliens are still shooting, I seemed to get through a group of aliens quicker that way.

After the first level you'll need to do more than just drag your men around. On the second level you are instructed to build headquarters and barracks and (as always) kill all the aliens. This level actually starts with one headquarters building already built. Without the headquarters you won't be able to build anything else. To build another building, select the headquarters and you'll be given a list of buildings in the selection window. Click on one of these buildings or objects to build, and then click on screen where you want it built. Each building costs money, so don't get greedy.

The first building you'll want built on each level is probably the barracks. This allows you to "build" more men. Once you have the barracks built, you can select the barracks and then click on the "soldier" icon in the selection window to build another soldier. Each time you click the soldier icon, another soldier will be built. Each soldier takes a few seconds to build but you can have up to ten soldiers being built at the same time.

Strategy definitely plays a role in this game. You'll want to group your men and equipment to create squadrons, so you can quickly recall a group to help in an attack or to defend the headquarters. Apparently the aliens live off of water. The more water they pump, the stronger the alien forces will be. The goal is to kill the aliens and destroy the water pumps as quickly as possible. Finding the water pumps is usually a priority for each level.

One of the features of Invasion that makes is so exciting to play is the variety of objects. Check out the Invasion website's support page to see a list of the all the soldiers, aliens, buildings, tanks, and other equipment that you'll encounter during the game. Each level offers a great mix of buildings to destroy, buildings to build, and aliens to kill. I haven't found myself getting bored with this game yet! 

Invasion is definitely a quality game - by that I mean I have been playing Invasion for a solid two weeks and haven't found any bugs at all! Very impressive, especially as I believe this is Kyouwan's first release. All of the screens are well laid out and make the game easy to play and learn. The music is also pretty decent. Nothing earth shattering, but the music won't get on your nerves like in some games. Sound affects are enough to satisfy but again, nothing earth shattering. You'll here the soldiers and tanks respond to your commands, but this gets old fast as there are no variations. During the attacks, you'll here gunfire, but nothing really fancy.

I tried playing several different difficulty levels and found that unlike many games out there, each level does get harder! Definitely try the "You Can't Win" mode. This is great! Not that you'll get very far, but there's lots of action!

I was very impressed with this game. Real-time strategy is perfect for the Pocket PC. I can always find down time when I'll grab my iPAQ to play a few minutes of a game. With the save option, you don't need several hours to play. Spend a few minutes killing some aliens, then go back to work! Life is great! With the quality of games that are coming out for the Pocket PC, my desktop and Playstation are getting lonelier and lonelier!

If you like real-time strategy, you'll definitely like Invasion. It'll be interesting to see how Argentum measures up. Definitely a title that everyone is looking forward to and has generated several discussions on the bulletin boards, but don't overlook Invasion. 

Pros:

• Great graphics.

• Difficulty selection actually makes a difference!

• Variety of buildings and equipment.

• Difficult AI to play against.
  

Cons:

• Long load times.

• Terrible English translations.

• Let's have some better sound FX!

.: Game category: Strategy Games :: Reviews Index :.