Unstoppable Gorg PC Review - PAGE 1

You may remember Futuremark from their first game Shattered Horizon, a multiplayer shooter. Their second is Unstoppable Gorg, a tower defense budget game for PC and Mac (and soon, iPad and Xbox LIVE) with a delightful 50's theme. While they are largely very different games, both are set in space and feature twists on old genres.

The basics

The setup is simple: in each level you have a planet or ship in the middle of the map to protect against the alien "Gorg" or their "Sunbot" friends, both intent on bringing you down and taking over the galaxy. If they get too close and do enough damage, it'll explode and you'll lose. Take out enough of the enemy with your defenses, however, and you live to fight another day.

It gets a little more complicated in that each map is divided into planetary-like 'rings'; it's on these you place a set number of defenses, which you can rotate as need be. For the most part this works well, but it can be frustrating to not have completely manual control, like when you have little choice but to place two artillery units on the same ring and enemies are coming from multiple directions -- in this situation you'll often find only one unit will be able to attack at a time. Being able to move units on the same ring independently would solve the issue completely.

Bring out the big guns

Defenses are wide ranging, from standard gunners to metal-piercing ray guns to repair units to smart bombs. You've also got to mind passive units like research labs and various sources of money. Each level will unlock a new type for your side and the enemy's, so there's always something to adapt to. Later levels get particularly exciting when you can use your smaller income sources to save up quickly and purchase new, huge income sources, at which point you can crank out a new unit every other second. This is just one way to play, mind you -- Gorg is built to accommodate multiple play styles and solutions.

Research labs prove a pain at times, as with enemies swarming your planet pretty much from the get go, all you want to do is keep pumping out money and tossing more defenses their way. You can't simply ignore these, though, as they provide room for mid-game upgrades in future levels which help you destroy enemies faster, provided you have the dough for it. A non-interruptive and more enjoyable system could let you 'fund' research post-game with extra money earned (a common occurence).

Difficulty

It must be noted while Unstoppable Gorg appears to be a casual game, the default difficulty ensures this is not the case for long. Despite not being a tower defense enthusiast by any stretch, I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but this wouldn't have been the case had there not been an Easy difficulty (and even that can get tough at times). Indeed, 'Moderate' will prove a substantial challenge for those less well-versed in the genre, and the two levels beyond that should host a maddening challenge for even the most accomplished vets.

Whatever you play on, you're bound to restart levels looking for the optimal solution that goes with your play style (start drawing income, place ray on outer ring, place artillery on inner ring when enemies hit this point, put repair unit on middle ring, etc) -- this is fun to a point and makes it function much like a puzzle game, though there are times you'll likely be pulling your hair out trying over and over again to no avail.

The pre-game screen makes matters more tough than they should be in that browsing through units in the enemy army is a pain with the mouse, which is odd because the encyclopedia available from the main menu features similar functionality but is much more user friendly to navigate. Additonally, there's no traditional 'pause' option available in game. Yes, you can hit Esc and stop what's happening, but a menu comes up and covers the majority of the screen, so you can't take a minute to breathe and evaluate the situation, something that would frequently come in handy.

Modes

Story mode is in true 50's style, complete with the excitable newscaster, the overture of war, and cheesy sci-fi get-ups and music. The "cutscenes" are filmed the old fashioned way, and entertain thoroughly. The favourite by far will likely be famous Finnish burlesque dancer LouLou D'Vil, who plays (minor spoiler alert) an alien queen in disguise and attempts to seduce you into a trap, a la Catwoman. Surprisingly, it all feels very well integrated, unlike a lot of games with a significant contrast between the cutscenes and gameplay.

As you plow through Story mode, you'll unlock new challenges for Challenge mode and also new units for Arcade mode. Both offer the same basic gameplay, but in Challenge you'll have specific restrictions to overcome, and in Arcade, you get a classic experience in that enemies never stop coming. The two modes serve as a welcome accompaniment if you enjoy that sort of thing, and Arcade may even be the preferred mode over Story for some, as there's no money or research to worry about.

It's good the offered modes are obviously well thought out and curated, though it's lamentable there's no versus mode, which could easily work very well here. There's always a chance for this later on, of course, whether for free or as DLC.

PC features

The game is largely played with the mouse, though a few keyboard shortcuts make life easier -- both feel natural for the most part. Graphics options are few (just visual quality, resolution, and full screen/windowed), though with a smaller scale game like this, it's expected and fine. Framerate of course is perfectly high, running at a stable 60fps on a high-end machine -- just about anyone should be able to run this without issue.

Final thoughts

For the most part, Unstoppable Gorg is a charming, entertaining, and very well packaged game recommendable to casual and hardcore players who enjoy anything with a space or silly theme, or the good old tower defense genre. It's remarkably similar to 11 Bit Studios' tower offense game Anomaly: Warzone Earth (which I also loved), so make sure both make it to your play list if this is what you dig -- at $10 a piece, there's little reason not to.