The Digest: Combining old school tower defense games with simplistic controls, strong multiplayer, and a unique night and day cycle, Murky Horizon offers a fun and thrilling party game. Although a few issues exist, overall Ham Studios does an excellent job in revamping an old-school classic with a new twist.

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2010
DEVELOPER: Ham Studios
GENRE: Action and Adventure
PRICE: 80 MS Points

PRODUCT OVERVIEW: Grab some friends and jump into this hybrid dual-stick shooter/tower defense game. Defend your families’ underground home from waves of flesh-eating lizards. You’re outnumbered badly, but some well placed defenses and a steady aim may get you through the night. Unique fusion of action and strategy. 40 rounds, 3 nights, 8 power-ups, 3 upgradeable turret types, endless strategies.
PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Up to 4 player multiplayer
• Unique day and night cycle
• Ability to create your own defenses
• Unlimited defense strategies

The premise behind Murky Horizons is a relatively simple one – move with the left stick and shoot with the right. You’re given an objective to defend against wave after wave of enemies and you need to survive as long as you can. Sounds easy enough, right? Not when the guys at Ham Studios added a number of new features, all of which create a unique and challenging twist on a simple objective. Starting on the main menu, players are given the choice of playing two game modes both of which are variations of the same idea. Defense is the core mode of the game, pitting up to four players against a total of 40 waves of enemies. A small building exists in the middle of the map which the player must defend with the aide of 4 starting turrets. Every kill rewards a player an amount of money and the possibility of a power-up drop, ranging from slow-motion to a new shotgun or a one-time explosive forcefield. After each wave is complete, players are given downtime in which they are able to build new turrets, create walls, or upgrade existing defenses. Survival is essentially the same thing, but instead of defending a building you’re now defending yourself. The biggest con towards these modes is that there isn’t the option to choose your starting wave. Unlike Gears of War 2′s Horde mode and every other mode like it Murky Horizons makes you start at Wave 1 every single time, and you can’t save your progress. So if you got all the way to Wave 39 and your friend had to leave, all your progress would be lost. Three types of turrets exist: a turret which shoots bullets, a missile turret, and an ice turret which slows enemies down. Players can also build wall pieces which can force the enemies, lizards in this case, into chokeholds. Defenses are also able to be upgraded, which provides faster firing rates, longer ranges, and more effective attacks. The biggest twist exists a few waves in – the unique day and night cycle begins to take effect, slowly darkening the battlefield. The downside? Your turrets can’t shoot in the dark, forcing players to either drop a limited amount of flares or manually provide light from your flashlight attachment on the gun for them. It is a welcome addition to an old classic, and one that makes players dread the sunset. As each wave progresses, the volume of enemies increases while your weapon damage decreases. This simple concept will create severe consequences if players mismanage their defenses early on or if they’re not paying attention to the mass of enemies on the right side. However, it also creates challenges in single player mode where during the first night cycle the game can start to get exponentially harder. For players who have mismanaged their resources or aren’t as experienced with this type of gameplay, it can create an “invisible wall” where players cannot pass without multiple tries. Technically speaking, Murky Horizons has both a single player and multiplayer mode. The only difference is when they ask you to connect four controllers you only connect one. The multiplayer is strictly local, so gamers will need to invite three of their buddies if they want full 4-player multiplayer.

Conclusion: Overall, Murky Horizons is a relatively good game for its cheap price and indie status. It has an exciting multiplayer mode which provides endless possibilities and will provide hours of retries and new strategies; just make sure you have friends over. Despite having a few kinks in its gameplay, particularly its singleplayer mode, it is definitely worth the 80 Microsoft Points you have lying around.

Single Player: 3/5 | Multi-Player: 4/5

Special thanks to Ham Studios for providing us with a copy of the game for review.