Pixeljunk Monsters Ultimate

 
Developer: Double Eleven
Steam Release: Aug 2013
Hours Played: 18.8
Similar To: Anomaly Warzone Earth / Deathtrap / Defend Your Life / Hero Defense / Last Hope
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips



GAMEPLAY
Standard tower defense games tend to follow certain trends and stick to conventions but now and again, certain developers take risks and tinker with those conventions. Enter Double Eleven bringing their own take on the TD formula and adding their own twists. Like Anomaly Warzone Earth, you control a commander but in this case it's a tribal warrior built like a turtle who walks on his hind legs. This fellow builds towers over the trees and as well as standing on a tower to upgrade it, he'll also need to pick up gold and gems dropped by the dead monsters - and this involves a lot of running around and strategic thinking. What is absolutely great about the game though, is that it throws in beautiful curve-balls left right and centre that have you constantly rethinking your tactics - but in a very good way.
 


BALANCE & PACE
To the layman this may cause frustration but to the connoisseur of TD games it makes the challenge more refreshing and worthwhile. The twists and quirks are many but here are a few: (1) knowing the range of your towers is vital; (2) deciding to upgrade with gems or to save the gems to buy a killer tower is key; (3) which tower to stand on or whether to stand on a tower to upgrade will be a decision you'll make all the time; (4) monsters take unusual routes, causing you to constantly rethink tactics. In all, PMU is a stylish thinking-man's TD game that really gets the player thinking about the right moves and just exactly where to place that tower in absorbing, convention-busting ways that brings life back to the TD genre. PMU is right up there waving the flag with Defense Grid for all that is good in TD games.



PRESENTATION & DESIGN
Double Eleven have gone with a cartoon style and a tropical twist regarding art-style - with greens, oranges and light blues abounding. On the title-page you have a good selection of pathways leading to useful info. Apart from Start Game, Tiki Hut will be the one you'll mainly go for as this houses 24 interesting challenges that unlock as you play. Pressing Start Game first makes you choose casual or normal difficulty and then leads you to a screen showing four islands that hold the levels. On clicking an island you are taken to a map of it with a path that has your avatar trundling along it to select the mission. In the game itself as well as running around upgrading towers and collecting gold and gems, you'll also need to visit your base and use gems to pay for more powerful unlockable towers.



PROGRESS SYSTEM
This path has dots signifying the levels with quite a few staying locked until a certain amount of rainbows have been acquired. You get a small rainbow by finishing a level with no lives lost and this appears over the dot so you can easily check to see how many you have. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this set-up. For one, flicking between those four islands is too haphazard for my taste; for seconds, when the game rewards the player a rainbow for success at the casual level, this appears on the map when you enter the game at the normal level as well even though you may not have acquired the rainbow at normal difficulty! Ok, it does tell you how many rainbows you have at each difficulty but I'd like to have had a colour-code or symbol to distinguish the difference.  

CONCLUSION

Pixeljunk Monsters Ultimate may not be a game to get into if you're trying a tower defense game for the first time as it will likely drive you mad or put you off. But it certainly is for open-minded tower defense veterans who don't mind having their preconceived ideas about what makes a good TD game mixed around a little bit. Initially, the game may be about just finishing the mission regardless of loss of life but the real hook will be in attempting to complete levels with the rainbow reward. The game is also unique - everything about the game from the soundtrack to the art-style to the colour-coded flags that flick up when upgrading to the all-round bizarre nature of it all just screams class and I have no hesitation in awarding this game the top award - and that's that.