Review - Age Of Wonders: Planetfall

Age Of Wonders: Planetfall injects fast-paced, tactical fun into the 4X’s ageing conquest model.

- Ian Boudreau

Revenge is a dish best served cold, the ancient Klingon saying goes, and nobody knows this better than penguins. Having made the interstellar journey to this dusty backwater planet alongside my rugged band of frontier fighters, the penguins quickly proved themselves admirable fighters in our war against the vicious psychic bugs who showed up first. As my troopers fell prey to the insects’ virulent battle vomit, the ten-foot penguins swooped in to tear the bugs apart with trisected beaks.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is the long-running fantasy series’ sci-fi spin-off, the Alpha Centauri to Age of Wonders’ Civilization II. Fans of the series will find Planetfall immediately familiar, as it maintainsTriumph’s now well-established ‘faster 4X’ dynamics peppered with XCOM-style tactical battles. What Planetfall has that’s new is a cast of delightful factions that range from hyperintelligent jellyfish to a species that constantly rebuilds itself from the flesh of its fallen enemies.