Aliens have landed and you have to kill them before they destroy the Earth! Most shooter games seem to have this simple formula - have evil aliens and a sinister plot to destroy humans and you fly around in some sort of aircraft shooting them down to save humanity. 0 Day Attack on Earth sticks to this formula.
0 Day Attack on Earth runs you through 21 levels of alien destruction in this top down, dual joystick shooter. The controls are simple enough, move your aircraft with one stick, shoot with the other. The left and right bumpers respectively control a boost function and a bomb attack which will clear out most smaller enemies around you and do a decent amount of damage to the larger enemies. Aircraft selection is limited to four different types at the start, but unfortunately it appears the other aircraft that are unlocked are just variations of these originals, no new weapons or features are obtained.
One of the interesting aspects of the game was the backdrop that you were flying over. Each city looked very real as you were destroying the aliens above it, and some skyscrapers were so tall you actually had to fly around them. As beautiful as these were, nothing you did ever damaged them in any way, aliens popping up through the ground did nothing after they were destroyed, and even unleashing a devastating bomb near one of the aforementioned skyscrapers didn’t even leave a scratch on it.
In single player mode you get the joy of facing off against the hoards of aliens with 3 AI controlled “friends.” I use this term loosely as they seem more interested in flying around shooting at nothing than helping you take down the alien menace. If one of the dreaded “mosquito” enemies happen to latch on to you, its almost a guaranteed death as you have to position yourself in front of your AI friends hoping they will actually shoot it off before it drains your life completely.
AI aside, the single player mode was entertaining if a bit short. Your goal is to destroy one or more primary alien types which will end the current level, get through six of these levels (days 1-6) and on day 7 you will have the joy of destroying a “boss” alien, which frequently was easier than fighting off the insane amounts of enemies on the sixth day. This pattern is repeated three times with different enemies - you fight for seven days over Tokyo, New York and Paris.
Co-op mode could be very entertaining or a nightmare depending on whom you were playing with and how many people joined the co-op madness. Co-op story was fun, though having four players could be a bit distracting, and as much as I hated my AI “friends,” sometimes they were more helpful than other players. My suggestion is that co-op story should be enjoyed with real friends and not random players over Xbox Live who only seem interested in obtaining 100 kills for an achievement.
The two other modes available online were a Capture the Flag mode and a mode in which the main goal is to control different territories. I had limited experience with either of these modes as it seemed no one was online playing when I was around. What I did experience was decent, but with almost no one playing it was hard to stay interested when I would wait for 15 minutes for one random person to hop into my lobby.
0 Day Attack on Earth was a decent game, however whether due to its higher starting price of 1200 MS points, or the fact that it didn’t really define itself as unique from other shooter type games, the online community is fairly dead. Limiting your playing experience to single player which has limited replay value, or hoping your friends will pick up this game to give you a good Co-op experience. Price notwithstanding, bottom line is 5.5/10.
Now for those achievement whores/completionists out there here is the skinny. This game is an extremely difficult completion. There is an achievement for completing single player mode on normal difficulty or higher with ONE life. Although this is obtainable, each alien has a pattern it follows and you do regain health and bombs between stages, this will take you some time and practice to earn. Many of the other achievements do take some time such as destroying 100 enemies in Co-op (better bring a friend), and a couple of the secret ones like obtaining all ranks or being shot down 256 times. With the exception of completing the game in one life, none are too hard, just time consuming. So unfortunately this game would get the thumbs down on both easy achievements and being an easy completion. Consider yourself warned.
