Earth Defense

In Brief

Earth Defense is a missile command type game. You can see a short video of game play HERE

Today's game does not include the Falcoware installer, so apart from when you first install the game, there are no adverts or browser redirections when you play the game. This has been the case for the last few Falcoware games.

The Game

Earth Defense is an offshoot of the classic missile command released by Atari back in 1980. The game was created using the Unity engine. Your mission is to save earth from attacking aliens. As you progress enemy ships come in increasingly large and faster waves. There are a variety of enemy ships from small to larger ships, some of which when hit split into three more slightly smaller ships. Your mission is to survive as long as you can. After the Earth has been hit approximately ten times it will explode and the game ends. On the left side of the screen will be displayed your game stats, i.e. how long you defended your planet for and your highest score. To control your ship us the A & D keys and firing your weapon use the space bar. Power-ups randomly appear and include a shield that surrounds the earth, extra guns that are useful against the ships that split into three, a second gun that automatically tracks incoming ships as well as others. Power-ups only last for several seconds. To use a power up you have to shoot it; they only appear for several seconds then disappear. The earths health is displayed as a bar graph along the top middle of the game arena and the time surviving on the top left.

Conclusion

The game plays okay, but the lack of the ability to remap the keys (common with unity games), spoiled the experience for me as I'm left handed and I found it difficult to control the ship comfortably and fire at the same time, because my left hand usually uses the mouse and my right hand the A & D keys, so trying to use the movement controls and firing button, I ended up having to cross my arms, which led to poor control. That said, the game delivers a reasonable gaming experience. I cannot say if there are levels to play or just one continuous level as I only ever survived for just under 2 minutes maximum. For those who like to challenge their own scores, this will probably appeal. I would says it's a coffee time game as it does become a little tedious after several minutes of game play; partly due to the lack of different scenarios. To the developer, I would consider adding levels with different planets from our solar system, or keeping it earth bound you could include the moon and the international space station. Overall I'd score this a 5 or 6 out of 10. For a unity games it's passable.

Don't forget to check the giveaway game discussion forums HERE; especially Delenn's threads for non Steam and steam freebies. The latest Epic Game freebies are now available (if you like stealth first person shooters the 2016 release of Hitman should not be missed. also available is the Shadowrun Collection that includes three games - Shadowrun Returns (Base Game), Shadowrun Dragonfall - Director Cut (Base Game) and Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition (Base Game); base game means there are paid for DLC's available for the version available for free, but are not necessary to play the base game). The fourth episode of 3 out of 10, i.e. EP 4: "Thank You For Being An Asset" is also available . (Episodes 1, 2 & 3 are still available free as well)

There's also a free standing version of Whispering Willows directly from the developers site (Interact with the spirits of the dead, solve the puzzles of the mysterious mansion and help Elena find her missing father in the horror/adventure puzzle game: Whispering Willows.) and Indie Gala are offering an excellent post apocalyptic car racing /shooting game called Death Track: Resurrection which was one of the first games I purchased on Steam back in 2009. The Indie Gala version is free standing. Also recently added is the third expansion to the Theatre of War franchise Theatre of War 2 - Battle for Caen; (sadly the previous two titles are no longer available). For those interested in the Tom Clancy franchise, you can play Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege from now until September 4th 9:00 PM UTC+1. You can find details of the free week HERE, it does require 82.3GB of free disk space and you need to be logged into your uPlay account to be able to install it.