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When you stop and think about it for a moment, we humans must be colossal jerks. There's
really no other reason that in so many games, TV shows and movies, our homeworld is under
attack by a hostile alien force. Oh sure in Acme Planetary Defense, most of your time
is spent knocking asteroids out of existence, but we're pretty sure that those asteroids
are being lobbed by aliens. Not only cause nuclear missiles accompany them, but sometimes
they rock up to pelt us with lasers, or just to jeer annoyingly.
This is a take on the classic Missile Command style of gameplay, but given that you're protecting
an entire planet, you have a nice three hundred and sixty degree travel radius for your protective
missiles. The enemies come in waves, and once a wave is complete, you have access to the
shop to not only buy all kinds of amazing upgrades, but to upgrade these upgrades. And
then you can upgrade your upgraded upgrades. We'll stop now. At the start of each wave,
every item you've purchased for your game appears in a crate littered around the globe,
and has to be shot to be equipped. This means that after a couple waves, you literally have
crates everywhere. This adds kind of a “lock and load” feeling before the bombardment
starts.
The game has kind of a cartoony claymation style to it, and as the Earth's health whittles
away, the effects of being hit with all means of destructive weaponry starts to show upon
the surface. The sound is much more lacking, with too many bleeps and bloops being a hindrance
rather than improving the play experience.
Acme Planetary Defense is fun, but it is also marred with bugs and balance issues. None
of the bugs actually negatively impacted gameplay, but the lack of polish coupled with laggy
loading on menus was noticed. When it comes to balance, while the selection of high powered
weapons and accessories gives a player a feeling of excitement and power, there is less a gradual
difficulty curve, and more random spikes before you feel overwhelmed. With a little more polish
and ironing out, this could be an enjoyable high score game that could have gamers fighting
for leaderboard supremacy.