I bet you didn’t see this feature coming. Anomaly 2’s multiplayer feature takes a different approach to the tower defense genre. Instead of having gamers play cooperatively, the game has them working independently of each other. One player is responsible for controlling the ‘enemy’ units, while the other player must defend his base from advancing attacks from his adversary.
This feature is groundbreaking as far as tower base games are concerned. It is fun to watch your opponent frantically run across the map as you lay down different weapon turrets in real-time. You are only allowed a certain amount of active towers at any given time, so you have to be strategic about where you place them.
When you first start an online match, you’ll have four different technologies to choose from out of seven. These technologies grant you different abilities and bonuses that make you harder to defeat in battle. As you play, you will unlock the three remaining technologies. If all these technologies were available to the player in the beginning, they would be invincible.
Playing the aggressor is similar to the single-player campaign. Your standard abilities from the single-player campaign remain the same, but the difference in gameplay is seeing your opponent ‘dropping’ towers in real-time. This can make it difficult to plan a route for your units.
Winning an online match isn’t as easy as you may think. There are multiple ways to win an online match, but it requires quick thinking and a good strategy. You can win a match by either earning the required amount of points or by gaining a point advantage over your opponent. Another change made in Anomaly 2 is the requirement to play a set number of games per map to unlock different stages. For example – you must play the beginning tutorial map five times before you can unlock the next stage.
While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it could make things difficult for gamers who are new to Anomaly 2 and cannot find an online player match. I like the idea of unlocking the stages; this ensures that the player experiences everything Anomaly 2 has to offer.
The online portion of Anomaly 2 is just as graphic intensive as the single-player game. There is literally no slowdown or lag while playing online. In fact, I never experienced any disconnects or glitches during this preview. The game played flawlessly the entire time via the Steam Network.
There is also a fully functioning chat system for communicating with your opponents during combat. I like the chat system; it’s so much easier than using the private messaging system that’s built into the Steam client.
Anomaly 2 has a handful of multiplayer settings the player can choose from. These settings include the ability to find highly skilled players on the network, among others. This option can be turned off, so it’s not like you’re forced to play gamers that are above your skill level; it all boils down to personal preference. I felt this feature deserved some recognition since there are gamers out there who live for a good challenge.
The multiplayer portion of Anomaly 2 offers refreshing improvements to the tower defense genre. As it stands, it adds a new dimension to multiplayer PVP (Player Versus Player) gaming.
Anomaly 2 is shaping up to be a tower defense game with many improvements, reinventing the way we play multiplayer and by adding features we wanted to see in the original Anomaly. Keep your eyes on Anomaly 2; it’s about to take the online gaming community by storm.
James ‘Daripp3r’ Pittaro
Platform: PC (Also Available for Mac)
Developer: 11bit studios S.A.
Publisher: 11bit studios S.A.
Release Date: May 15th, 2013
Price: $14.99
