Alien Creeps is a fast-paced, action-packed, free-to-play iOS exclusive tower defence game from developer Outplay Entertainment, which puts you in charge of defending your base from a cute but deadly invading alien race. The gameplay is frenetic, tense and highly enjoyable; however, it's seriously hampered by its "pay to win" microtransaction system, which will unfortunately leave all but those with the greatest patience and the deepest pockets from playing on.
Let's start with what the game gets right - which is an awful lot. From the opening colourful and bright cartoony art style of the title screen, it's hard not to be taken in by the charm and playfulness. You're first guided through a well-designed tutorial section, which quickly brings new players up to speed with the tower defence genre if they're unfamiliar, whilst not outstaying its welcome for tower defence pros.
The gameplay then, of course, is classic tower defence; your goal is to stop the advancing alien armies from getting into your base, by placing machine gun nests, troop barracks, laser turrets and rocket launchers in their way. Let too many aliens through, and in the words of one Private William Hudson, it's "Game over man!"
Of course, keeping the aliens out is something that's easier said than done. You have a starting period on each level to set up some rudimentary defences, and prepare for the aliens to come pouring in in their droves. The aliens follow a set path through your base, and it's up to you to basically choose what you put where in order to fend them off. Killing aliens gives you power, which you use to build more towers and improve your existing ones to make them deadlier - which is absolutely essential, as each wave brings tougher combinations of enemies flooding into the map.
The aliens are cute, deadly and annoying - the perfect combination (Cute?! - Ed)
Speaking of the little critters, the enemy alien designs are bright and colourful, and they each have their own dastardly charm. You'll gradually get familiar with the correct tactics for dealing with each threat, and break out in a nervous sweat when some new hulking monstrosity starts tottering it's ungainly way to your base.
If you're feeling particularly daring, you can get power bonuses for calling in the next wave earlier, which leads to some good balancing of risk and reward tactics - is it best to finish off the current wave's stragglers and get some brief breathing room before the next onslaught, or call the next wave in early and get a power boost, at the risk of being overwhelmed before you're ready? As the base commander, you'll have to see what methods work best for you.
Your hero will level up over time, and can be upgraded like the towers
The inclusion of StarCraft-style hero units alongside the general towers and outposts is a nice touch that really helps the flow of gameplay. The free hero on offer, Flak, is a classic grizzled Rambo-esque character complete with a shotgun, grenade launcher, and, of course, plenty of gruff attitude. Two other heroes are available for purchase, each with their own perks and abilities, and more are set to be released in the future.
Unlike the other tower-based marine units, you can freely order your hero around the entire map, which is absolutely essential to success. You'll often find that you'll need to keep your hero dashing from point to point, helping to shore up the more threadbare patches in your defence; sometimes rushing out to the frontlines to stem the tides of alien invaders head on, or at others, skulking around the base entrance to stop any plucky alien trespassers making it through. Your hero will gradually level up through extended play, slowly but surely becoming that tiny bit more badass each time.
The game's controls are smooth and responsive
Alien Creeps' touchscreen controls are very responsive and fluid. Moving your hero around is simple and intuitive - all you have to do is tap the character and point them into position. Dragging and releasing the target cursors for the troop airdrops, carpet bombing strikes and the tesla tower is also a real delight; everything is fast and responsive, you never feel like you're having to fight with the game for control. Controlling the action with your fingers rather than a keyboard and mouse lends the game a further level of immersion; you feel like a General moving pieces and models round a detailed warzone diorama. Just resist the urge to bark out orders at the top of your lungs whilst playing though - trust me, it's not a good move.
On the topic of calling in airdrops and carpet bombs, it's time to look at the microtransaction side of things. On the surface, Alien Creeps seems to handle its free to play scheme pretty well. The game has two types of in-game currency - coins and gems. Coins are earned by completing and winning missions, and for getting kills with your hero unit; these can be then spent on further upgrades for your troops, hero and towers.
Gems, on the other hand, cost real world money to buy (they are dropped very occasionally by enemies, but they're pretty rare to come by). Gems are used to buy care packages, such as helicoptered-in troop reinforcements and carpet bombing runs, fuel for the tesla tower, and more health or continues once the extra-terrestrials have their grubby mitts, tentacles, suckers and other extra-terrestrial whatnots on your base.
Like many free to play games, the upgrades you buy with the coins have countdown timers that have to run down before you can get to use them, or alternatively, you can spend gems to get them immediately. To be fair, Alien Creeps' timers are pretty reasonable as far as free to play games go - the longest it seems that you'll have to wait for an upgrade is about 15 minutes, although there are some exceptions.
For example, the game does grant you occasional care package rewards, which give you a few extra resources, but nothing that would significantly help turn the tide of a difficult battle for long. You get five helicopter troop drops and five carpet bombing runs in these rewards, but you have to wait a lengthy 6 hours to collect your supplies.
The cost of the upgrades, sadly, is definitely slanted towards the pay to win side of things. Upgrades for the care packages - i.e. the resources which cost real world moolah - cost a fraction of the amount of coins you would need to upgrade your core tower and troops. This wouldn't necessarily be an issue on its own - but the problem is, the game's exceptionally difficult and unforgiving without these extra gem-fuelled boosts constantly at hand.
The care package upgrades cost significantly less...
Initially, I put my struggles with Alien Creeps down to my unfamiliarity with the tower defence genre as a whole (I prefer to do battle with invading alien hordes in the turn-based XCOM style myself). But after several days of playing and grinding away, I've not been able to progress naturally beyond the first five levels. What started out as a gentle learning curve quickly rocketed to a steep climb in difficulty, and I'm now left at a punishing impasse.
This impasse is the most frustrating thing about the game; Alien Creeps locks off access to the later levels by means of the in-game ranking system. In order to move to the next area on the map, you have to acquire the requisite number of stars to unlock it. Stars are awarded for completing levels, and are based on your performance; a perfect run on campaign mode will net you three stars, and completing the Veteran and Spec Ops modes for each level will get you another two.
...than the absolutely basic tower ones you'll need
Fair enough, I hear you say - but as mentioned above, I only managed to make it as far as the end of the first jungle area before coming up against a brick wall, and not being able to naturally progress any further - that's a paltry five levels in before you're forced to backtrack and replay the same levels over and over again, or cough up some cash to advance. You're required to get 20 out of the jungle's total 25 stars in order to progress to get to the next desert area - a whopping 80% of the stars is required, which just feels like too high a barrier of entry for the average player.
I struggled to get just a measly 17 stars in total, and that was from days and days of playing, collecting coins and free 6-hour supplies whilst desperately cashing in my dwindling gem supply on extra care packages and tesla tower zaps. Without the starting number of gems and the occasional free supplies that the game gives you, you'd struggle to make it to 17! If you aren't forking out money for upgrades on a regular basis, Alien Creeps will be dishing out the pain.
When a game forces you to get a highscore or perfect run in order to progress, it's counter-intuitive. When such content roadblocks are put up at such an early point in the game, they don't exactly encourage you to keep playing. I can understand how you might want to hold back later sections of the game for only the best of players, to give people an incentive to go for the high scores. But to prevent all but the best players (who're probably forking out for plenty of care packages no doubt) from progressing beyond the first handful of levels just feels silly. If the game's fun, you'll go back and replay sections naturally without having to be barred access to the rest of the game as an incentive.
Challenge mode offers a way of getting resources without paying cash, but its difficulty will soon put you off trying
Alien Creeps also comes packing a challenge mode, where you can face off against randomised and increasingly difficult waves of aliens to win more coins, gems and care packages. You essentially have to gamble your current winnings against the next round in the hope of getting more; lose, and you lose everything and have to start over. You can get a few supplies this way, but these challenges are just as hard as the normal missions, so this quickly loses its appeal as a natural alternative to spending money.
We don't like to bemoan games that aren't afraid to ratchet up the difficulty to make things more challenging, but in this case Alien Creeps pushes things a bit too far. The average player will struggle to flawlessly complete enough levels to make their way through the game - unless they spend their money on care packages to progress. It's a real shame, as the game's plenty of fun to play - it's just the free to play model locks you out of most of it.
Buying more health/lives nukes all the enemies onscreen - as well as any remaining challenge
However, despite the grumbles about the pay to win mechanisms, the game is still enjoyable to play - just be prepared to grind away and replay the earlier levels an awful lot in order to progress naturally. Speaking of which, if you'll excuse me, it's time to collect my daily supplies after another 6-hour wait, and have yet another crack at level 5. (Pumps shotgun) Come on you alien freaks! I'll take you all on! Now where did I put those gems...
Format Reviewed: iOS
