All Your Base: Unstoppable Gorg

All Your Base reviews games created by independent developers. A game with a score of 10 Bases is pretty much the OK Computer of video games.

Download (2.0 GB)
Developer: Futuremark Games Studios
Platform(s): PC + Mac, iPad and XBOX (XBLA version coming later this year)
Genre: Tower Defence
Price: $9.99 (roughly Rs. 500)

Unstoppable Gorg is a pretty standard tower defense game at first glance. The visual style is a throwback to 1950s alien invasion B-movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and The War of The Worlds. Cutscenes are live action sequences featuring purposefully awful costumes and acting, stock footage and rockets held up by very visible string. It’s awesome.

Warning: Planets may be bigger in real life.

The basic premise behind UG is that enemies of various sizes attempt to get from Point A to Point B and you try and stop them with ‘towers’. Where UG separates itself from the rest is that it’s set in space, meaning your ‘towers’ are satellites orbiting Point B - planets/mining colonies/super-hotels… You can only place these satellites on specific places, but you can move their orbit rings. It’s all very clever, and makes a lot more sense if you watch the trailer below.

Like most tower defence games, the mechanics take five minutes to learn, but days of playtime to master. Even on easy mode, Unstoppable Gorg can be surprisingly difficult. That said, despite the game’s name, the Gorg (along with the Sun Bots and the Brain Riders) are stoppable.

Despite its charming appeal, UG does have its flaws. For a game that advertises itself as ‘casual’ it can get a little too difficult at points. Even I’ve rage-quit a good few times playing it. Also, despite pretty much every level bringing new satellites and enemies, the gameplay can get incredibly repetitive. It’s good for a nice 30 minutes of chill-out time, watching stuff blow up and King Gorg swearing death to all humans.

Sereia is played by LouLou D'vil, Finland's premier burlesque dancer. Really.

I certainly recommend playing Unstoppable Gorg, but not at it’s current price. Wait for it to get discounted in one of Steam’s bi-daily price slashing sessions. I’d much rather pay $9.99 for a mostly awful game that keeps me entertained all day (the original Driver for example) than a mostly good one that doesn’t.

Bases: 

Futuremark Games Studios is the game development arm of Futuremark Oy, a Finnish software development company. They used to be called Mad Onion.