14 DAY TRIAL // 
My line of brave shotgun-equipped soldiers is now advancing past the protection afforded by the two turrets I placed a few minutes earlier, angling slightly to the right in order to avoid the concentrated fire of the enemies’ own long-range weapons as I advance on their last three hives.
The powerful blasts of the weapons make short work of the creepy little crawlers that advance towards my troops, and one trooper steps forward to deliver three quick rocket attacks and clear a path.
After about one minute I manage to take out the hive and capture the location, but the flow from one of the remaining enemy bases has shifted around my battle line and it has already taken back one previously freed control points and is headed for a second.
I know I can contain the enemy attack, retake lost ground, and then deliver the final blow and win the mission but, by not paying attention, I just set myself back 15 minutes and probably disappointed my commanders.
Infested Planet is a strategy title that gives players control over a platoon of futuristic-looking space marines who are battling an alien threat manifesting itself in ways similar to those of the Zerg in Starcraft.
The narrative of the Rocket Bear Games-developed experience is a little slim, but there’s no pretense here about a complex story and carefully constructed characters.
The science-fiction setting is well used; the commanders and scientists involved are a little bland, but they manage to deliver information that the player needs while offering solid reasons to take on missions and kill aliens.
Once a mission starts, the player has access to five marines and needs to complete missions, usually culminating in the elimination of all enemy nodes on the map.
Gamers have a range of options that they can use: they can create structures in order to support their squad with long-range fire or with attack choppers, they can upgrade each of their soldiers towards new specializations that offer new abilities, or they can call more troops using the resources that they obtain on the map.
The first few missions seem too easy and the alien infestation is quickly removed even while not paying too much attention.
But the aliens soon evolve and change their own capabilities and way of attacking, and Infested Planet becomes a carefully calibrated experience, in which knowing when to push and when to defend and how to use the various special abilities is an absolute requirement for those who wish to win.
It’s impressive how Rocket Bear Games has created an alien swarm that moves as such, basically slithering slowly around the map to create an unstoppable wave that even the most powerful weapons cannot sometimes eliminate.
Infested Planet also creates some pretty impressive hero moments, reminiscent of Starship Troopers, even if it always uses a top-down experience, with marines standing their ground as masses of various aliens try to get close enough to hurt them, dying under shotgun and flamethrower fire.
There are some moments when the game seems unfair, and I replayed a few missions before I was able to beat them. The strategy layer of the title is simple but offers quite a lot of depth.
The graphics style used in Infested Planet seems a little detached from the theme and the mechanics, but I weirdly began to care about the little guys I was controlling even if they lack names and I have no way of differentiating between two officers or two normal troopers.
The sound design is a little less original but better connected to the world that Rocket Bear Games has created, even if it is clear that most resources for the title were linked to the actual strategy layer.
Infested Planet is a good title that can provide many hours of intense action and solid strategic thinking, and I loved the way it focuses on the simple act of battling an ever-moving stream of aliens to create tension and a sense that every battle has clear stakes.
