DIYgamer

Livin’ in a Cell… Biology Battle [Review]

Xbox Live Indie Games is a great place for small time indie devs who want a great digital distribution platform for which to launch there small time games. Biology Battle, however, doesn’t belong in the XBLIG section. Quite frankly, the game just feels too much like an XBLA game to be there. That’s not a knock against other games on XBLIG, but more of a praise towards Biology Battle.

Biology Battle is a top down, one roomed, shooter in the same vein as Geometry Wars. The difference here being that you aren’t battling against a bunch of colorful, neon polygonal figures, but rather various virus and bacteria-like microbes. But that’s basically the only difference as far as the main game goes. You move with the left stick, shoot with the right and use the triggers and bumpers for any specials you may have. From that point on it’s just a matter of dodging while shooting. It’s a simple system, but it worked for Geometry Wars and it works just as well for Biology Battle.

Gameplay

Biology Battle hosts similar gameplay to Geometry Wars. You fly around in a 2D environment dodging various bacteria-like things as you try to destroy as many as possible. It’s a system that works incredibly well and can create hours of addictive gameplay, especially if your a high score freak. Better yet, grab a couple friends and you could very well lose an entire day if these types of games are your cup of tea.

The game comes with a competitive versus mode attached. Now, unfortunately, none of this game is online which is a real shame because some of these modes just scream for that functionality. However, what you go have here is some genuinely fun modes. Each mode takes place in the same cell-like structure but offer different methods of gameplay. For example one of the modes has you racing from one safe area to the next. The longer you stay in the safe area the more points you lose but for each successive time you make it to the next safe area you get an additional 10. Likewise, there are games that focus around turrets and survivability as well as an almost “snake-like’ sort of gameplay. There’s a lot of variety found within Biology Battle which is very rare for an XBLIG.

The one thing I felt could haveve been done in Biology Battles was the inclusion of actual levels. The game comes with two modes; local and global. Both, however, are simple mirror images of each other but one records high scores locally and the other globally. It feels like the normal local mode could have been divided into levels to break up thegameplay a bit more. Certainly it would have made single player a bit more enticing…

Style

Colors, colors, colors, colors! Like with Geometry Wars, Biology Battle does not skimp out on giving you the full blast of colors that you’d expect. All of this is beautifully delivered in HD and, quite honestly, makes the game look stunning. There’s not much to say about it other than that. If you like colors, you’ll enjoy the style of Biology Battle. If you don’t, then your a monster… what’s wrong with you?

Story

The game’s introduction starts out with a mildly intriguing story. Basically your a nano-bot designed to help cure diseases and cancer and everything bad. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually spell out what happened. Shortly after the intro your treated to some code-speak and an error message as well as a bunch of random characters drawn in red. It sets the story up for disaster but nothing was ever actually explained which is kind of a shame. I know it’s a simple game, but come on… don’t start a story and not finish it.

Everything Else

For those that absolutely love it, there is a global high score and a trophy system (since XBLIG doesn’t come with achievements). This is really just icing on the cake and, while it doesn’t contribute to anything, only serves to give those interested a bit more of a reason to keep on returning.

Biology Battle does not feel like an XBLIG, and nor should it… as it stands it’s still has one of the highest development costs of any other game on XBLIG, costing near or around $100,000. It was actually intended to be released onto XBLA, but Microsoft rejected it and Novaleaf put it on XBLIG instead.

Regardless, Biology Battle, through it’s own faults, still gives some good times and any fan of Geometry Wars looking to shake things up a bit would do themselves a favor by giving Biology Battle a run through.