Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All it's cracked up to be"

The future is a wonderful time. In it, we will have discovered the secrets of life and just about anything will be possible. It is in this era we have found a way to do away with our mortal coil and preserve our noggins in a glass receptacle. Everything else we traded in for bigger and better cybernetics, which allows us to travel through space and explore new galaxies. Yay, humanity!

As we discover new planets and alien civilizations (actually, we'd be the aliens to them), we can further our prosperity and trade. Apparently, our lust for gold hasn't subsided for otherworldly minerals and this is still the key point towards our ever expanding capitalism. We'll do anything to mine our resources and destroy anything in our path to take it. So actually, nothing has changed and we're still primate hunters. Boo, humanity!

Anyway, that is the universe in which Cortex Command unfurls itself as an entertaining little Real-Time Strategy (RTS). With your personal army, you take on missions to retrieve valued goods and decimate other forces, whilst protecting your precious, precious brains; yes, even from zombies!

The gameplay is mainly run by its whacky physics engine, which makes your airborne or grounded armies bob and flail around, when faced with the funny laws of physics. Moving and handling your units is a little messy, but it all adds to the fun of the game, where explosions and gunfire creates a strangely humorous battlefield. Add to this a fully destructible environment (including characters) and you have the décor for a gory and messy performance. Especially since your band of misfits usually works itself into some shenanigans that blow their limbs off or sends them flying into a pack of explosives, you'll have bits and pieces everywhere. It really is an action packed and fun experience and controls itself fairly well.

You can control a character and also set goals for others to achieve, to then watch the mayhem they create. Firing gets guided with a line of fire and there's a whole barrage of weaponry you can choose from; from regular to downright insane cannons, divided amongst 4 different factions. Apart from flying around with jetpacks, your characters can also pick up a digging gun and start excavating the depths of the scenery. If you're short on supplies, each character also comes with a slightly confusing, but handy interface, where you can go into a buy menu and purchase an impressive amount of things. From new guys to a lot of weapons to tools etc.; the menu takes some getting used to, but after that it's incredibly versatile.

Cortex Command is presented in 2D pixel art and that adds to the endearing agony that is the decapitating fields of gore. The colorful appearance makes destroying everything more fun and the whacky physics combine into this perfectly. These sort of physic engines are always hit or miss: Either you embrace the fact they'll never be true to life and you enjoy the ride or they don't fit in the game and ruin the whole lot. Luckily, in Cortex Command this works wonderfully and makes for an RTS that is both fun and creates novel tactics. It reminded me a lot of funny games such as Worms, before they ruined it with their 3D aspect.

There's not a lot available for now, but the 3 missions so far offer you tons of fun. In particular, I've enjoyed replaying the zombie mission a million times, as it is the most versatile to let your imagination run wild. Apart from the regular mission playthrough where I worked to extract my goods safely, I replayed it with a one man army, a counter swarm, a speed run and more. I even played a game where I bought one guy with a bandana, gave him a shotgun and then put myself in a survival horror game and went blasting heads; it was barrels of laughs when I got my arms blown off. In that same mission, one of my men got his legworks cut. Instead of just feeding him to the wolves, I made this person the most valuable and mobile person in my army. As he only had to move half a body, I could make him fly in between anything and that half-guy went on to hover and destroy everything in the cave; by himself! And after I had thanked him for his services, the little tiger continued to serve his faction proud, by putting him up as a local turret. This just flaunts the many possibilities this game has to offer.

Apart from the 3 missions, there are also editor tools where you can create your own stuff, as insane as you like. Personally, I don't believe in that stuff, as I find it lazy to let the user create the game; but it's there if you want to.

The bottom line is that Cortex Command offers a ton of variety and entertainment in a small package. The whacky antics of your faction will make you smile and think and then plain out laugh, even if you fail due to some unfortunate dismemberment. The developers offer a way to buy the game now during development, at a reduced price, whilst unlocking all other builds later on. I suggest you take them up on that offer. If you'll excuse me, I have more heads to sever.