XBLIG News, Reviews & Previews

Cavemen Vs Aliens is a realtime strategy game which pits you the Neanderthal Cavemen against invading aliens from the planet NouBruce who as an advanced race have created the first planet wide mobile communications.

Due to poor mobile communications reception and the negative effects of the electromagnetic emissions from the mobile communications masts on alien citizens, they are forced to install the base stations outside of their atmosphere, therefore Green mobile communications head-quarters (a mobile communications company called Green, why does that ring a bell??) are attempting to install mobile communication masts on earth and it's up to you to stop them.

I found the controls for Cavemen Vs Aliens fairly straight, but it did take a few minutes to get into. You have to control your pointer with the left thumbstick and deploy cavemen with the X button. The Y button replenishes ammunition; the B button retrieves you cavemen. A is used to heal your cavemen. Sounds fairly straight forward right? Well, each of these actions is not instantaneous as they each involve a friendly pterodactyl, which flies to the selected location to carry out the desired action.

However, as you progress throughout the game and earn gold for successfully completing each level, you are able to visit the shop of Huggy Bearskin and purchase various upgrades to your cavemen and pterodactyls.

The whole presentation is great and reminds me of a game about a caveman that I used to play on the Amiga years ago, but whose name escapes me. The music tends to get a bit repetitive on the map and menu screens, but then that's about the only negative thing I could find with the game.

Cavemen Vs Aliens is playable by up to two local gamers and is available on the XBLIG channel for 400MSP.