Darwinia
Forgive me, for I am weak with the English. The arcane arts of word sorcery are largely beyond my simple powers. Language to me is a wonderous thing, but equally dangerous; I play with it, I squish it around, and I even try to mould it into some usable form, but I do so in constant fear of sparking a reaction and unwittingly detonating a horrendous grammar bomb that destroys all meaning for thirty miles.
See? I've even mixed metaphors in that paragraph alone. That is why I am insufficiently equipped to accurately review Darwinia. I can tell you what it is, roughly, but I'm afraid that will have to do. My apologies in advance to all the people out there who need to be told what to think.
Darwinia is, roughly, a real-time strategy arcade game. You play an anonymous hacker who has stumbled upon a virtual world created by Dr. Sepulveda. The world is gradually being eaten away by a virus, and it is up to you to put things right again. The people of Darwinia are little green AI stick men, and as such you have no direct control over them. Instead, you must execute programs (read: build units) and use them to interact with the world.
Here we run into our first obstacles: There's a default unit cap of three, and you don't need to mine resources. No, there's no catch here. You can create your units at no cost, but you can't have that many. Your basic unit is the Squad, which is really made up of a small platoon of laser-toting soldiers whom you control directly in a manner not unlike Syndicate mixed with Robotron. Obliterating Viruses and Centipedes results in a little red soul being left behind, which can be hoovered up by your (optionally automated) Engineers. Drop them in an incubator - all buildings come pre-set on the abstract Sentinel-esque landscape - and they'll develop into brand new Darwinians. If you need to exert some influence over the little green ones, you can turn one into a Lemmings-style Officer who can be used to gather or route them to safer places. Finally, Armoured transports can carry them around directly and even turn into Darwinian-manned laser turrets.
And that is it. No base building. No mining. No hit points. No carefully-coordinated pincer attacks. It's you, your Squads, and the Darwinians against the horde. Frantic laser blasting and Squad-launched Space Invader bombing runs while you struggle to protect your little green men and suck up spare souls after each firefight. The stages are themed around restoring the Darwinian world, such as clearing out the polygon mine or purging the AI blueprint of infection, but generally revolve around blowing up anything red. It's the elegant simplicity of immediate action and response that we enjoyed so much at the dawn of gaming time. With free units, you effectively have infinite "men" and there is little cause for strategy beyond setting up your laser turrets and remembering not to let your Darwinians wander into the swarm of Ant Attack enemies.
It's not perfect. The single-player campaign is far too short, shorter than anything I have seen this decade, and after that there is only the option to create your own levels. The HUD, blissfully hidden from sight entirely until called upon, takes up three full screens when frankly it could fit comfortably in the corner of one. However, these are minor compared to its major flaw: The fact that it's not a sequel and it's not from a big name. This alone ensures that the sheer beauty of Darwinia will be denied to so many simply because they didn't consider trying it out.
Darwinia is a rare and beautiful gem. Like most gems, you won't find much use for it, but simply having it improves your life and makes you feel better. It is the sort of game which reminds you why you started playing in the first place. Try it. Embrace its purity. Spot the references. Support the games industry.
In Conclusion
I have pushed too far now in my quest for text. I shouldn't take any more chances than are strictly necessary. Darwinia is a wonderful thing, but most of you won't listen to me and it will sink into cult obscurity.
| Pixels |
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| Poxels |
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| Final Score |
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| Mid-80's |
| Like revisiting your old school, it's fresh but familiar and full of little things that run around beyond your control. |
