12DOVE Verdict
Pros
- +
Appealing cartoon look
- +
Deceptively deep strategy
- +
Fresh take on the RTS
Cons
- -
Might be too cute for some
- -
Not as complex as traditional RTS
- -
Dancing to upgrade towers?
Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.
No one wants to see a village full of cute little monsters perish at the hands of a plague of spiders. So killing them is your motivation for replacing all the trees in a forest with cannons, gun towers and anti-aircraft missiles. Admittedly Greenpeace might not approve.
PixelJunk Monsters’ hand-drawn 2D visuals give it a cutesy look, but they hide a deceptively deep real-time strategy game. Just not your typical one, because instead of using a cursor for armament-placing you have direct control of a monster. And instead of paying cold hard cash to upgrade towers, you do a little dance in front of them. Quite.
It’s the tightly balanced levels that make it so addictive and, despite its simplicity, the few choices you have are vital. Do you spend the seconds before a new wave of enemies collecting coins before they disappear, or dancing to upgrade towers? Do you spend funds on upgrades or save them for a new type of tower? The 20 levels, co-op play and these tricky dilemmas will have you hooked.
Feb 7, 2008
More info
| Genre | Strategy |
| Description | This is the cutest take on the RTS genre we've ever seen. |
| Platform | "PS3" |
| US censor rating | "Everyone" |
| UK censor rating | "" |
| Alternative names | "Pixel Junk Monsters - PS3 Network" |
| Release date | 1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK) |
Shadow's Japanese voice actor in Sonic 3 is just as perfect as Keanu Reeves – he's the voice of Sephiroth in multiple Final Fantasy games
Despite its perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, Arcane season 2 has been toppled in the Netflix streaming charts by an unlikely drama
Square Enix finally removes its ban on sharing Final Fantasy 7's biggest spoiler, 27 years after it first happened in the original JRPG
