X-Morph (Review)

By: TheJewphinHave you ever felt like tower defense games needed more action? Have you ever felt like shoot-em-ups needed more strategy? Have you ever wanted to combine the two and see what happens? Then X-Morph is the game for you!X-Morph is a tower defense/shoot-em-up brought to you by Exor Studios and it is awesome. Why is it awesome? Let's start with the plot. Aliens have begun invading Earth, planting giant obelisks in the middle of well populated cities. You play as the aliens with the goal of protecting your fancy obelisks from those pesky humans.X-Morph takes a very direct approach to the alien invasion concept from the idea of the alien. Generally with games where you play a villain it is easy to fall too far in one direction or the other. Either the aliens are either ridiculously evil or the aliens are the good guys with the game being a denigration of the evils of man. X-Morph provides neither perspective. Your alien commander does not talk about how humans need to be eradicated or how tasty humans must be. The humans are merely threats that are in the way of assimilating the planet. They are neither good nor evil, just kind of in the way. In fact, the most disparaging things said about the humans is that they seem to destroy their environment more than you do.The human perspective is no different. From the human side you will hear generals discussing battle plans and losses with a focus on wiping out the alien threat. Neither side shows much emotion. There is no screaming at the death of allies or directing rage towards the enemy. It is very cut and dry. For the humans, the aliens exist and need to be destroyed using whatever resources are at their disposal. For the aliens, only the the humans that are actively attacking the towers need to be destroyed.To defend your special planet sucking obelisks, you are tasked with building towers to destroy incoming tanks and armored vehicles. The towers you build can create gates between them, thereby blocking paths for enemy vehicles. The emphasis of the tower building is to increase the path length between the enemy spawn and the obelisks, thereby giving both you and your towers increased opportunities to destroy.When the waves of enemies appear, you can switch between ghost mode which allows you to build towers and attack mode which allows you to destroy enemy vehicles. While you're in attack mode, the enemy ground units will shoot at you and enemy air units will spawn with the singular purpose of shooting you down. This creates an interesting dilemma where you want to be in attack mode to destroy vehicles, but are at greater risk of being destroyed while in attack mode. While dying is only a temporary setback, causing you to respawn in base, the time lost can have devastating consequences when your obelisk is surrounded.The gameplay of X-Morph has a great balance between peacefully strategic and frantically hectic. You have as much time as you want to set up your towers before you start the waves, but once you start the wave the game will keep you moving at a fast pace until every ship is destroyed. The balance and combination of gameplays works extremely well and elevates the game to being greater than the sum of its parts. By building towers strategically, you can plan routes that make it easier for you to focus your fire when in attack mode.The upgrades in the game are enjoyable, but also feel lacking in variety. There are four types of towers you can unlock and four types of shooting modes. The shooting modes in particular are a lot of fun to switch between, as ground units are more susceptible to the bombing type while air units are weaker to missiles. I just wish there was a little more variation in terms of gameplay style. With the small number of towers and shooting modes the game becomes a little more about min-maxing then it does about creating your own style.In terms of appearance, X-Morph is a beautiful game. The vehicles are lovingly rendered with bright graphics that makes them stand out around the environment. Vehicles visually degrade in response to continuous attacks, making it apparent when they are about to explode in a viscerally satisfying fireball.Tower defenses and top down shooters are not for everyone. But if you enjoy creating long paths and tight choke points for enemies, then check out X-Morph. If you like frantic dodging and shooting with tight controls and vibrant graphics, then check out X-Morph. And if you enjoy both, then... double check out X-Morph?