If I was to describe Greed Corp in one phrase, it would be, “simple yet complex.” Greed Corp, a turn-based strategy game released for PSN, plays like a lot of other strategy games. You harvest resources and the goal is to eliminate all traces of your enemy from the map. What makes Greed Corp unique, however, is that the gameplay centers around the fact that the ground tiles you stand on are destroyed by harvesting for resources. The more you harvest, the more the ground sinks. Eventually, the ground cracks, and harvesting for resources one more time will destroy the tile along with everything on it.
Greed Corp has incredibly simple gameplay. The board is made up of hexagonal tiles, and you control a corporation that can build harvesters on the tiles to extract resources. You extract resources automatically at the start of your turn, but this causes the tile the harvester is on, and every adjacent tile, to be knocked down a level. The tiles vary in height, so some tiles can be harvested for longer before they crack and break apart. You cannot remove a harvester, so it will eventually destroy the land it’s on, no matter what you do.
In addition to building harvesters, you can build armories, cannons, and airships. Armories can be built on any tile you have control of and are used to create walkers, the foot soldiers of the game. You use them to take over tiles and attack enemy tiles. Cannons can also be built on any tile you control. You buy ammo separately, and can fire on a tile up to 5 tiles away, which can reach halfway across most maps. Attacking an enemy tile with your cannon will cause the tile to lower a level, and destroy a tile if it is cracked. Airships are used for taking a group of walkers from one tile to another tile. These are essential, because in most matches there are gaps you will need to cross.
Where Greed Corp gets complex is in its strategy. Anything that you build or buy can’t be used until your next round. For example, if I build 8 walkers (the maximum for an armory in a single turn), I can’t move them until the next turn. This means I have to make sure the tile isn’t in danger of being destroyed, or I’ll just waste resources. You can also have your harvesters “self destruct”, which means that they just destroyed the tile they are on. This is a good option if you have an armory next to a harvester, and you don’t want your armory to be destroyed. Having one of your harvesters self destruct will also cause a chain reaction that will destroy all cracked tiles that are touching the tile of the harvester, and any other cracked tiles that are adjacent to the tiles being destroyed. The amount of depth in the strategy of the game will make it so that matches always play out differently when you replay them.
The game has a ton of replayability. You have the option of creating a match with up to four players. There are 36 unique maps, 12 for made for 2 players, 12 for 3 players, and 12 for 4 players. The cool thing is that you can set each individual enemy player to be either online, local, or computer-controlled. Setting an enemy player to online will search for any available player online. However, when I was playing, there was hardly anybody online. Setting to local will let you play against a friend in the same room. If you set the enemy player to computer, you can set the difficulty to be easy, medium, or hard. Having so many maps to replay makes it so you can play this game for months.
The game has a lot of style. Each of the four factions has its own art style. This style is reflected in the buildings, units, and even the color of the tiles you stand on. Having distinct art styles is really important in a game like this, especially late in matches when the ground becomes a checkerboard of different faction tiles. During matches, 20’s style jazz and big band music plays in the background. Both the art style and music present the game as being playful and fun, which is exactly what it is. It’s also a nice contrast against the seriousness of the story.
The main story mode is a good length. It will take you about 6-8 hours to get through it. At the beginning and end of every match, you are presented with text telling you what’s going on in the story, which is about corporations that are destroying the land by harvesting for resources and fighting wars with each other. Seeing the ground crumble beneath you is a constant reminder that you are destroying the land. It is really cool to see a gameplay mechanic go hand-in-hand with the story like that.
If you like playing matches against the computer, then Greed Corp is the game for you. The game is incredibly fun, and matches will be different with each replay, even if you are playing against the computer. Matches typically last between 10 to 2o minutes, so the game is easy to pick up and jump right into. On the other hand, you could spend hours replaying different matches. This is a game I would recommend to everybody, mostly so that I’ll actually have people to play against online.
PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score
A ton of maps Great style and originality |
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