Titan Attacks

 
Developer: Puppygames
Steam Release: Feb 2012
Hours Played: 7.3
Similar To: Space Invaders Extreme / Super Crossfire / Symphony
Rating: 4/5 Parsnips

 

GAMEPLAY
Titan Attacks is a Space-Invaders style shooter that has you controlling a chunky tank-like ship whose movement is fixed at the bottom of the screen and limited by left and right horizontal movement. You have the usual fire button and, should you purchase it from the upgrade shop between waves, the use of a smart-bomb that can clear an entire screen - that's all there is to it! Starting your adventure is a breeze should you begin from earth (the first of five planets) as at first aliens are predictable and almost mind numbingly slow. Later, after a gradual process, you move onto the next planet (moon) as things get a little more challenging. Enemy flight patterns become more aggressive, falling asteroids get thrown into the mix and annoying mines get dropped as well. A planet’s 20 levels end with a pretty mean boss in the form of a mother ship.


BALANCE & PACE
So what makes it interesting? Well, as you destroy things, friendly aliens in parachutes and certain packages from various sources fall to the bottom of the screen. You'll do well to collect these for these reveal dollars that you accumulate during the game. After every wave, you are then taken to an upgrade screen where you use the dollars to purchase upgrades. Upgrades include: shields (effectively extra lives); gun power; extra bullets; smart-bombs (to wipe out a whole screen at once) and add-ons (which add a missile cannon but makes you a larger target). Part of the strategy is figuring out what might be immediately useful and what might be better to save up for to buy later to make the game easier in the future. The game works better as an exercise in unlocking planets than actually getting a high-score. 


PRESENTATION & DESIGN
By now, although not at the front of the queue when it comes to innovation, we should know what to expect from Puppygames. They make simple, solid, bog-standard retro-style games with dark backgrounds. The title-screen, likewise, is basic and straightforward with just the bear-bone essentials of what you need but unfortunately I did find it awkward and temperamental to navigate around this with a controller. Despite this, what they do with gameplay, they generally do well and this portion of the game was rock solid and stable. Each planet has its own colour-scheme which is a nice touch but I'm really not a fan of the darkness and gloomy feel of the menus. The music is racy with the right blend of blips and bleeps giving off the science-fiction feel while sound-effects are light, not too obtrusive and help to make the player relax.
 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
The game is divided into five planets which are essentially chapters made up of twenty levels each. You’re thrown in at Level 1 (earth) and clear waves until you attempt to defeat the mother-ship at Level 20. If successful, you’re onto the next planet (moon) and attempt to do the same... and so on and so forth. The problem is that when you start a new game from an unlocked planet, you begin with the last score intact. This means that your high-score does not represent skill but serves as a kind of marker to indicate how far you’ve got into the game. In other words, a five-minute game on Saturn by a poor player garners a bigger score than a 45 minute game battling through earth, moon and mars by someone with vastly more skill – and this doesn’t seem right. Playing the game solely to get from Earth through to Titan itself seems to be the way to go.  
 

CONCLUSION
As a casual game, my gripe with the scoring system isn't important. Earning the right to get to more difficult planets is reward enough and pushing for an ever-increasing high-score works perfectly well. Unfortunately, this throws up a problem when more than one person wants to play the game. One player may not particularly want to benefit others by unlocking parts of the game allowing others to interfere with their high-score. Are there multiple profiles? No... but a simple case of including multiple profiles must surely not be that difficult to implement. Anyway, let’s not make this shortfall a deal-breaker. Despite this fault, with its interesting wave-by-wave upgrading system and enhanced twist on the Space-Invaders theme, Titan Attacks remains a rewarding romp overall.