Manual Intervention Review

Grade: C+

Defend the planet while everyone escapes

This is a planetary defense game where you’re defending the planet against attacking robot cruisers attempting to wipe out all cities with orbital strikes. It’s reminiscent of that epic start from Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately, your auto-targeting system has gone offline due to AI tomfoolery, so your goal is to take the reins and target manually.

Gameplay switches between arcade-style games and comic strip stories

I like the vantage point from space and how you can spin around the globe to focus on different planet locations. The game has a unique viewpoint that I haven’t seen before.

In between levels, there are comic strips that explain the story of this attack and how the enemy has brought down all of the auto-targeting systems. You, as a cadet, are pretty stressed out, considering that if you miss in your defenses, thousands and potentially millions of people will die. No pressure, right?!

The mechanics get more complicated as the game moves on with shield regens, EMPsand other tech introduced.

Overall, the gameplay wasn’t that fun for me, and I felt the rhythm of the attacks was either too slow or way too quick. The controls as well handled awkwardly. Of course, this might have been my shoddy attention span, so take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I could tell the devs cared a lot about what they were making, and the details were all finely tuned.

(edited)

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