Aegis of Earth (PS4)

Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault is a tower defence game with a unique rotational mechanic. Instead of building towers along paths, they are built on movable rings within a city. Enemies attack from all sides, and city rings need to be rotated to best ward off these attacks.

The cities themselves are made up of four rings, spreading out in concentric circles from a central control tower. The control tower has a large crane-like arm in build mode, and doubles as a usable weapon during an invasion. The four rings are divided into segments, although in early-game many of these remain unusable. The inner three are pretty much used for everything, whereas the outer ring can only be used for temporary fortifications such as shields.

One square houses a power plant, this powers the whole city and regularly needs upgrading in order to further advance defences. On the outer ring you have a Port for 'dandelions' to dock, and a Processing Plant where you collect tax and craft illuminite from crystals, both of which are key to strengthening your city.

For one reason or another, it's you they've appointed commander to defend the city against attacks. So no pressure, it's only the future of mankind they've perched on your shoulders.

In order to defend the city you have to gather resources to further enhance your firepower. You then decide what and where to build on the city rings. Keep in mind your placement, by matching two or three identical towers across rings allows them to merge, forming a more kick-ass version of that tower. At times this proves awkward in battle through only being able to move one ring at a time.

By winning battles you attract civilians from other cities outside your play-world. They arrive on a dandelion: a flying creation somewhere between an airship, a helicopter and a fish. After a while you'll get sick of the cutscene with its equally cheesy accompanying comment. Some nights I dream of dandelions docking to wake in a cold sweat screaming, "No, no, not again."

Comments are supplied courtesy of six operators, though you gain several characters for each role as the game evolves. You switch them in and out, taking into consideration their stats and energy drain from battle. Each of them willingly obey your command without question as you rule supreme.

...It may be best to avoid this one. To call them last-gen would be kind, but once immersed with the games playability it's easy to overlook its dated appearance.

The attacking monsters appear uninspired, as does much of the city and its surroundings; not terrible, just a little bland for my taste.

As for sound, the music is decent and fits the game well, but that's as far as the praise goes. At many times during the quite lengthy dialogue exchanges, characters simply voice single words, (hey, right, oh...) leaving you to read the full exchange. Outside the story, characters don't always have a lot to say, and often reuse the same few lines over and over which I found growingly tedious.

The overall presentation of the game isn't at all bad, it just seems a little dated. The menu's are intuitive and everything is laid out in a logical and user friendly manner. When comparing positives with negatives, the positives massively outweigh my few minor grumbles.

The game isn't overly difficult. The further you get the higher level enemies you encounter and at times you need to quickly react to ensure your towers are facing the right way. I haven't yet encountered a scenario I'd deem to be hard.

As you progress you are given other cities to look after and have to juggle yourself between them to keep happiness as high as possible. Each new city seems abundant in a different coloured crystal that you typically extract from fallen invaders; these crystals are massively important in researching and building stronger defensive units. The command centre can also be upgraded to offer a further line of player controlled defence.

Through the whole game a story plays out in typical anime style as you gain new members to your ranks. Although this seems rather forgettable and at moments terribly cliche, it does a decent enough job of moving you through the game.