Darwinia + Review (Xbox Live)

The Gods are displeased! (Well, either that or they misplaced the magnifying glass...)

There’s nothing like helping out the little guy, right?  Five years ago, Introversion Software introduced the ingenious real-time strategy game Darwinia to the PC market, wowing players with its chic retro style and its addictive (yet user-friendly) gameplay.  This past week, it finally arrived on Xbox Live, in the form of Darwinia +.  Did the formula make a successful transition to console format?  To answer simply, yes.

Throughout this adventure, you're surveying a digital world created by the brilliant Dr. Sepulveda, inhabited by little Atari 2600-like square characters called the Darwinians.  They live in peaceful harmony, treating the good doctor as if he’s their God.  (And, well, he created them, so that sounds about right.)  However, while snooping in a recent email, they inadvertently unleash a virus upon the populace, which grows in size and dwindles their numbers horrifically.  In order to save your species, you’re sent in to help organize the Darwinians, battle back against the evil virus creatures, and repopulate the members of the lost clan.  It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Darwinia + plays like a routine real-time strategy game, as you move around on a board and place groups of soldiers and other Darwinians along the map.  From there, you’ll guide them into battle, carefully balancing their numbers so you don’t lose too many in one swoop.  Once you’ve cleared the area, you can work on repopulation, making your army stronger for the next batch of virus creatures posing a threat on your land.  If you’re a veteran of these types of games, you’ll find the controls easy to get into, even though you’re using an Xbox controller rather than the traditional keyboard and mouse.  And if you’re a newbie, a helpful tutorial walks you through every step of the process.  Everybody wins.  Just make sure you’re prepared for some slow pacing through the battlefields.  These Darwinians are moving like they’re knee deep in molasses.

These Darwinians have huge battles, despite their diminished size.

In addition to a strong single player campaign, Introversion also included the Multiwinia supplement, allowing you to take part in online matches against friends through Xbox Live.  Domination, King of the Hill and Capture the Statue options are available, each with hours’ worth of exciting tactics to uncover.  It’s good fun, although there are very few rewards after winning a battle.  You even have to move to another screen to see where you rank on the leaderboards.  It should’ve done that automatically.  It’s not a big deal, though.

Not much has changed in Darwinia’s design over the past five years, but it’s so appealing that it really doesn’t matter.  The character design is cute, and the rendered 3-D worlds remind us of the stuff we’ve seen in the classic Disney movie Tron.  The game also moves fluidly, although there are times when heavy battles have led to bouts with slowdown.  (Again, no biggie.)  The music, synthesized by virtual maestro Trash80, is wonderful to listen to, and the sound effects are straight out of old-school arcades, with a few modern touches thrown in for good measure.

Although I’m not the biggest fan of RTS games out there (especially ones that go for more than ten bucks, like this one), I must admit that Darwinia + has really grown on me.  The easy-to-get-into gameplay, fascinating presentation and huge single and multiplayer options make this a world worth exploring.  Give it up for the little guys.