Review: Multiwinia

Is it possible to feel empathy toward a flock of 2-D sprites? This week's guest reviewer thinks so.

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Very good review, although I think you over-empisised the importance of officers. It is possible (Although difficult) to win a game without using them, and for small groups of MWGs the left-click-selection control usually works better. I wouldn't say that the gameplay "revolves" around them, even if they are somewhat important.

EDIT:

"The aptly-named Randomizer takes this element of chance even further by occasionally introducing crates with a temporary global effect, such as a "mega rage" that increases the damage output of all units or a "spawn mania" that briefly quintuples the output of every working spawn point. Some crates even trigger "crate mania," which spawn dozens of crates everywhere. The randomizer helps impart Multiwinia with a hectic, unpredictable pace that belies the game's otherwise simplistic mechanics."

This is completely and utterly wrong. That is not what the randomiser does. It creates a small area on the ground where the MWGs change color, randomly, every few seconds.

Also:

MaximusBrood:

...The author apparently also hasn't noticed the "Hold SHIFT to move faster" message.

Nice review - it's great to read a review that captures the tone and the experience of the game, rather than just covering the gameplay points in a long laundry list.

Just a comment re: "Perhaps simplicity breeds empathy"

Indeed it does - the simpler a drawing, the more humanity we tend to add to it ourselves. Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" is a very good (and fun) introduction to the how and why simplified character representation works so well.

good review, great game
playing it still since when it came out, its truely epic, good job to interversion for making great games without needing a huge budget and team

Left clicking and holding creates a spinning void like blue glow. This can be used to highlight Multiwinians and send give them orders.

Nimbus:

This is completely and utterly wrong. That is not what the randomiser does. It creates a small area on the ground where the MWGs change color, randomly, every few seconds.

Also:

MaximusBrood:

...The author apparently also hasn't noticed the "Hold SHIFT to move faster" message.

I apologize for the mistake. For the most part I had to eyeball what a particular crate does, and in retrospect I confused the randomizer (attack) with the option to stick to "basic" crate drops only.

As for "hold SHIFT", I very much did so, but the issue remained the same: Darwinia's control system doesn't quite hold up to Multiwinia's pacing.

unangbangkay:

Nimbus:

This is completely and utterly wrong. That is not what the randomiser does. It creates a small area on the ground where the MWGs change color, randomly, every few seconds.

Also:

MaximusBrood:

...The author apparently also hasn't noticed the "Hold SHIFT to move faster" message.

I apologize for the mistake. For the most part I had to eyeball what a particular crate does, and in retrospect I confused the randomizer (attack) with the option to stick to "basic" crate drops only.

As for "hold SHIFT", I very much did so, but the issue remained the same: Darwinia's control system doesn't quite hold up to Multiwinia's pacing.

Perhaps you should check out the Introversion forums?

As to the control scheme, it is designed specifically so that people with a keyboard/mouse setup wouldn't have nay advantage over people playing with a 360 controller for when Darwinia + is released on xBox live.