Intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, and it’s all trying to kill you. Defend humanity’s planets and installations with deadly satellites, and teach the alien scum not to mess with Earth. Unstoppable Gorg takes the tried and true tower defense formula and adds some unique twists. Tower build slots are arranged in orbits around a central point the player must defend, while hostile alien ships approach on multiple winding paths (conveniently marked with dotted lines). Each orbit, and all the satellites in it, can be rotated freely. This mechanic allows players to track enemy ships with their satellites and reposition defenses to counter the varying paths and types of enemy assaults. Doing so, however, can open holes in the defense and expose crucial support satellites to enemy fire.
Attacking ships are able to damage and destroy the defensive satellites, requiring the player to balance repairs as well as tower placement, upgrades, movement, and resource management. Combined, these elements create a faster-paced and more fluid game than the classic tower defense game formula. (In later levels, the pace becomes downright frantic! And there’s no pause button, where you can calmly asses the situation and make adjustments. There is only a button to make the game to faster, and the menu.)
Each level has six medals which can be won and four difficulty levels. New enemies appear and new satellites are unlocked each time a level is completed, presenting the player with an ever-expanding array of challenges and strategy options. And as if this weren’t already enough, challenge modes can be unlocked for each completed level as well.
The effort and, dare I say, love that went into the creation of this game shines through in the cutscenes and story. The shamelessly campy plot and special effects are a faithful homage to the sci-fi films of the 1950s. The costumes and string-suspended models are a testament to just how much fun the developers had making Unstoppable Gorg.
About three quarters of the way through the game’s 21 missions, it starts to live up to its namesake. Finding the correct build order, satellite types and position to counter the enemy waves became nigh impossible, and I consider myself a pretty experienced tower defense player. (Or, I did until now, anyway.) Fortunately, the difficulty can be adjusted for each level during the story, saving the player costly dental bills from excessive gnashing of teeth. Dropping it down to Easy might feel a bit like cheating, but this game’s Medium is what most others would call Hard.
On the downside, some of the levels feel as though they are built around a single winning strategy, and don’t seem to have a great deal of tactical flexibility. Finding out you’ve missed some key element of that strategy at the end of the level (when it’s too late to do anything) can be quite frustrating. Health bars on the satellites are not as visible as they could be, and the time it takes to hunt down which satellite is going to explode can mean the difference between victory and defeat at the frantic pace of later levels.
This game is an honest challenge, and many levels will require multiple play-throughs to complete. Completing later stages feels like an accomplishment rather than an inevitability, as with some games. But for the price of two beers, (or 10 very bad beers, I guess) it’s difficult to top this game for fun-per-dollar value.
