Review: Ant Raid

Score:

75%

If 90s animated films have taught us anything, it is not easy being a colony of ants. The peaceful little insects just want to live together in harmony but instead always find themselves tormented by bigger and badder bugs. Another fact that animated children's films have shown is that humans are always the bad guys. These two life lessons have combined to make the premise of Ant Raid; an opening sequence sees an ill-fated attempt at pest control turn the game's other insects from happy bugs to mutant ant-killers.

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Players take control of ants to defend their bases, using fairly basic RTS (Real Time Strategy) elements to fight off waves of rabid bugs. Tapping on the screen brings up a circular select area, which can be expanded to highlight more ants through a longer press. The more ants that attack an incoming bug, the quicker it is knocked out. It is a deviously simple concept that is given depth through different types and colours of bugs.

Each attacking insect poses a different challenge, from the snails that knock out the ants that are attacking them to beetles that flip over and must be attacked twice. It is here that strategy really comes into Ant Raid as your defending army of ants must be carefully micromanaged to deal with multiple threats at the same time, ensuring that both no insects reach the base nor all ants get wiped out. As each type of bug is introduced slowly through the story, players are faced with an excellent learning curve, with the latter levels proving extremely challenging and thoroughly rewarding upon completion.





Another layer of complexity comes through the colours of the attackers, which represent power-ups that can be harvested when killed. Activating a blue power-up revives all ants and makes them indestructible, making taking care of snails and beetles a breeze. The red power up makes ants quicker and can be combined with the blue power to transform ants into golden super-soldiers that destroy enemies in moments, turning hectic waves of attacks into a much more doable task.

Finally there is the green power-up, which changes the game completely. Control of the ants is relinquished as the player becomes an all-powerful being, able to squash attacking bugs with a tap of the screen. Players must be careful not to miss a strike though, as the lightning bolt sent down will strike the ground, causing an earthquake and damaging the home base.





In its best moments, Ant Raid brings all these elements into a challenging and fun strategy game. Unfortunately, it feels unable to truly reach its entertainment potential, with every-so-slightly clumsy controls. In moments of screen-filling, frantic, attacks, controls and instructions can be inaccurate, leading to frustratingly missing attackers and failing a level. It is a problem not helped by the lack of pinch-zoom, as map adjustments are certainly missed when the going gets tough.

Ant Raid is comprised of two modes, story and survival. The story mode brings together objective-based levels with a loose storyline, using comic-book style cut scenes to keep things flowing. Whilst it is a good method of slowly introducing new gameplay elements, some of the collection missions are uninspired and the story becomes very repetitive. For players looking to test their RTS skills there is a pure survival mode, which pits the ants against endless waves of enemies in a bid to get as high a score as possible.





Visually, Ant Raid is great, with the crisp and detailed models complemented nicely with a vibrant colour palette and musical score. Each little ant really feels like they have their own personality, making the task of protecting their base all the more important.

Ant Raid isn't a ground-breaking RTS game and it certainly isn't without its flaws. It is, however, a great little game, ideal for play in short bursts. Simple enough to pick up and play, yet challenging enough to keep players coming back, Ant Raid is definitely a game worth checking out.