Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest: It's You or Me. I Choose Me.
Company: Introversion
So many analogies come to mind to explain what it is like to get a hold of the demo to Darwinia's sequel, aptly named Multiwinia. Ones about water or wine after years in the desert float to the top. Various images of starved carnivores shown juicy steaks are also in there. The one that sticks out the best would have to be that it is like looking at the cure for a terminal disease and knowing that it is not enough to cure it totally. You will have to wait to get your full dose of Multiwinia to truly survive. If you have not played Darwinia, then by all means please take this opportunity to go get it now. Go ahead, I will wait here for you to get back.
So now you have experienced all of the creamy goodness that was and is Darwinia. It is only onward and upward from here with Multiwinia. Our little 2D dudes, and sorry - possibly dudettes, have spread throughout their digital world. According to the info coming out of Introversion Software's camp, they have become drunk with their own power. Their success in Darwinia has left them with one goal now, world domination. A quick catch up for those who may have not heeded my advice. A Darwinian is a 2D autonomous program that is loosed into its own 3D environment. They think for themselves, but are guided by the user to accomplish tasks. Darwinia had a rich third-person environment with many natural enemies and environmental concerns. Here, it looks like they are really focusing mainly on the multiplayer aspects in this universe. They have claimed that there will be 6 game modes. I am somewhat disappointed to see a lack of the single player story experience that made Darwinia great, but I am sure that once I am busy trouncing my friends in multiplayer, I won't miss it too much.
There were two modes and a tutorial available to try out in the demo of Multiwinia, "King of the Hill" and a version of Capture the Flag called "Capture the Statue." The King of the Hill had two locations to play, where as Capture the Statue only had one, and everything was very straightforward. Shoot everything, take no prisoners, and let the engineers sort out the bodies. There were glimpses of all of the standard utilities we have come to love and use in Darwinia such as the aforementioned engineer that picked up the little digital souls left on the battlefield and carted them back to be resurrected in your color. "King of the Hill" is just that, so it is an interesting struggle when you have attackers on all sides fighting for the same thing. I really liked the Capture the Statue, I dare say even better than King of the Hill. There was a nice game of tug of war that happened for the statue as it passed opposing forces. Very fun. We saw the armor units that can transport your troops, the air strikes, and gun turrets. I, of course, want to see all of the toys we haven't seen, but I can be a little patient. I did see the new control, as this time you have more control over your actual Darwinians than you did in the previous version.
Really, this is a cruel teaser of what the whole tasty game is going to be. The good people over at Introversion have yet to let me down. I have full confidence that this will be all the game I am hoping it will be. Time will tell and these guys are hard in crunch according to their blog postings, so I will let them to their work. You have plenty of time to heed my advice and get all of the way through Darwina before it is time to switch gears for Multiwinia.
-WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd
Related Links: Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest Introversion Software
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