Guns'n'Glory WW2

The original Guns‘n’Glory played not only with the standard tower defence genre but also with the 'good guy vs bad guy' trope that many games force on us. In both respects it was a refreshing change.

Guns‘n’Glory WW2 takes a more conventional route. You no longer play as honourable bandits partaking in a cheeky bit of robbery and murder against pesky settlers. Instead, you can play as commander of either the Allied or Axis forces in WWII. It may be a more traditional take, but it doesn't end up hurting the appeal.

Axisability

There are a number of tweaks to the Guns'n'Glory formula this time around, the principal one being that your enemy really fights back this time, adding a strategic layer to the gameplay.

For instance, your tanks are good against normal infantry but as soon as those nasty Germans (or Yankee Schweinhunde) send anti-tank troops your way, you need to immediately withdraw or protect them with riflemen.

Although this never goes beyond the basic rock, paper, scissors pattern, it remains a sufficiently challenging exercise when you’re under pressure to move soldiers around at the same time.

'nade of honour

Special units on each side bulk up the ranks. Fritz gets a blonde medic who casts a healing aura within a certain area, while Uncle Sam turns up the heat with a flamethrower-toting GI. At the same time, you can collect crates with special weapons like air strikes and land mines.

The enemies only ever attack from set paths, so Guns'n'Glory WW2 still has a distinctly tower defence feel to it, but the need for constant repositioning and tactics gives it a real-time strategy flavour.

More so since you now spawn troops and tanks from the barracks and factory, rather than waking them up from set positions around the map, as in Guns'n'Glory. You also upgrade your fighters in the down-time between levels, as opposed to during the fighting.

The art of 'more'

These and a few other additions show that HandyGames has purposely set out to make noticeable changes to the game’s design, rather than re-hashing the formula.

You can now order your troops into the path of the enemy, for example. This has the effect of confusing them and blocking their march, but it also increases their aggression, making it a good risk/reward strategy. Unfortunately, your troops also have an annoying habit of blocking each other and getting stuck, meaning an unwanted extra layer of micro-management.

The Xperia Play’s controls are a little obsolete here. The D-pad can be used to control the cursor and the face buttons select between buildings, but it’s much faster to use touch controls, particularly when it comes to routinely necessary actions like collecting the coins left by fallen enemies. Having said that, the L and R triggers provide a very helpful zoom function - another new and welcome addition to the series in itself.

Despite a few control issues and the occasional ‘quirky’ AI pathfinding, Guns‘n’Glory WW2 not only sticks to the strategy adopted by its older sibling in the wild west but it also improves on it through a series of small but very intelligent tweaks.