REVIEW : Drone Swarm (PC)
Earth is destroyed and all hope is lost. A familiar story has seen a hundred times over in various movies, books, and video games. Drone Swarm is about survival after, you guessed it, Earth is destroyed and all faith is lost. The variation is Still alive has done a fabulous job of adapting this familiar plot into an uncomplicated yet powerful tactics game that recognises you control 32,000 drones to fight back against the aliens that ruined your home. As you hunt for a new planet, you fight different enemy ships that must be destructed, and to do so requires a range of attacks and protective manoeuvres.
As Captain Carter, you guide a spaceship named Argo. Whilst browsing new planets and moving across the solar system and beyond, various sectors of alien vessels try to defeat you. The way Drone Swarm allows you to do this is divided across three strategies: attack, defend, and the use of a kinetic blast. Each tactic has its benefits, and working out how to take on every fight has a satisfying trial and error method to it. Using the mouse to form a wall of defence sends the drones to guard the Argo. Ships have a path of attack, all different in their approach, so acting quickly to protect the hull’s integrity is important.
As you proceed through the play, new preventive abilities open up and the wall becomes more proficient of defending the Argo. However, enemy ships also improve, and you are constantly growing up how you tackle each new challenge. When it comes to attacking, you draw a route for the drones to clear out the opponent, but due to the rate at which they move and the direction of how they move, you may miss the opponent altogether. When you are involved in the battle, different enemy types attack through the long-range, whilst others fly directly towards the ship as if they are kamikaze pilots.
Upgrades to your defence can trap ships with this direct approach in the walls, but then other ships may charge a powerful laser cannon that once fired can rip right through the Argo and kill it immediately regardless of how many drones you have defending it. This is where your third skill the motor blast comes in. By charging it, you can send millions of droids directly at it, hitting it off course and disrupting the cannon. This can allow you to draw a line of attack directly at the dreadnought and do some serious harm.
Switching between your three strategies is done simply by pressing the three hotkeys, Q, W, and E. It’s a fluid system that works well and allows you to make on-the-fly choices in the fraught seconds of a tense battle. The further you get, the tougher the battles become, and you can frequently come up with impulsive decisions that might seem stupid in your head, but seeing them unfold is pretty damn pleasing. For instance, using your active blast to knock a spacecraft into the way of another ends up destroying the attack of two ships, and at this minute you can use your drones to destroy both of them. You don’t even have to create accurate lines, meaning if you have sufficient drones left you can transfer them in a ring of destruction to take out the opponent in one circular swoop.
Drone Swarm offers loads of various enemy types and scenes where you have to mix up your plans, and I am a big follower of this. The central problem is how close you have to be with your requests. If you draw a line of attack a millimetre past your opponent, it doesn’t hit. This can be irritating when you’ve almost lost the fight. Also, some ships are overpowered, and a crazy move can result in the Argo being destroyed. 32,000 drones may appear like a lot, but when you are fronting multiple ships coming at you from all sides, some of your choices may fall on deaf ears as there simply aren’t sufficient of them left.
The narrative is told through comic book cutscenes, all of which look amazing. The animation is fantastic, and whilst the plot isn’t exactly edge of your seat, the voice acting is rather good. As for the visuals in battle, Still alive has made the drones look remarkable, and when there is so much going on, it’s easy to know exactly where you are and where your drones are positioned. Every new environment is vivid, the consideration to feature on every ship is important, and the overall presentation is pleasing on the eye.
