And while that change certainly streamlines the controls, there are plenty of moments in the mobile version that made me feel like much more of a spectator than an active player. You couldn’t as quickly just double-tap to transform units or repair units in the back of the pack.
In the PC version, the ability to control an on-ground commander gave Anomaly 2 an added sense of activity and involvement. Similar to Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Anomaly 2’s iOS/Android port cuts out the player-controlled on-ground commander of the PC version in favor of a traditional strategy game skybox view. Knowing how and when to time these abilities are where the meat of the tactical gameplay comes into play. But the most important thing you’ll be doing is buffing up your units with repair abilities or distracting your enemies with decoys. For example, you may want to transform your Assault Hound into a Hell Hound so that you can handle enemies from both sides. These units can often be transformed into another mode to more properly fit the battle you are approaching. Your tanks and other various armored vehicles roll through the urban environments in a single-file line, looking for robot aliens to blow up. Many of the single player campaign’s missions play out in a similar fashion: buy a few units, set your route and do your best to make it through alive. Fortunately, after a couple of these dry simulation missions, your virtual reality training session is interrupted by an attack, in which you are thrown into a real battle to test your new skills. You still set your routes and assist your units as they move and attack, which are explained in long and fairly tedious tutorial missions.
Most importantly though, it was a nice balance between casual pick-up-and-play controls and deeper strategic elements that hit home with players-especially on mobile devices.Īnomaly 2 picks up where the original game’s expansion left off, in a world overrun with alien robots and some very familiar gameplay mechanics. The unique take on the genre made it a global success and pushed it to just about every imaginable platform (even Blackberry 10!). Back in 2011, Anomaly: Warzone Earth was a PC and iOS game that flipped the tower defense genre on its head, putting the player in the role of the attacker instead of the defender.