Come on, let that childish grin out. I know I did. Cavemen Vs Aliens is a great name for a game, especially for a game as fun and simple as this. It works around a basic mechanic: you have four pterodactyl to carry, heal, rearm and rearrange your cavemen; each one the colour of an Xbox button.
With these cavemen and their winged transportation, you have to capture objective points and fend off attacks from the aliens – who are exactly the same as the cavemen, with flying saucers instead of dinosaurs. Press X to drop up to three cavemen on the territory, and given enough time they will capture it by building a fire on it.
The cavemen will then throw rocks at any boggle eyed alien that steps foot on the island. They will of course need ammo, and by pressing Y, a little yellow pterodactyl will fly across and give them a big boulder. When they get shot at their health will drop requiring you to press A and drop a nice box of health, or press B to have them flown to safety by means of Jurassic evacuation.
As I said, very simple. But like any RTS game, no matter how basic, it’s going to require some astute micro-management skills. Trying to control around four islands each with two or three cavemen on them, who are getting shot at by aliens, is a tricky feat. You have to keep passing over the map dropping health and ammo, moving troops about to stay in the game. Mistakes will happen and when they do they can cost you the level.
Even more so in the later levels when you have to keep the chieftains son, the brilliantly named Colin the Courageous, alive while taking out the enemy. What made this so tricky is the fact that you were given thirty fresh troops to spread over three levels. The first two were very easy but the last, where you have to fend off the attacks of thirty aliens, is really tough; I kept getting them down to one or two left and the time would run out. It’s a shame that frustration crept into the game as up to this point it was easy, yet really fun.
The narrative is surprisingly good as it does not try and outdo itself, instead keeping comical and amusing, all the while being backed up with some great cut-scenes. The whole game is well polished with bright and colourful visuals that help it stand out from similar titles.
There is a real scope for this game working as an 800MP arcade game. Just bolster the visuals, throw in some addictive achievements, add in some customisation – there is a shop where you can buy upgrades – and change the offline multiplayer to online and you could have a very good game. As it stands it’s a brilliant indie game that will keep you distracted for a good few hours.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
