Beware Planet Earth! PC

Beware Planet Earth! is the debut production of the independent French studio Lightmare. The industry veterans Gwenaël Massé, Fabrice Chaland and Christophe Rautou have been involved in the development of the title.

The game's humorous storyline refers to desktop magazines with science fiction stories, especially popular in the first half of the 20th century. Martians invade Earth to steal the planet's greatest treasure - cows. Their goal is to become Barney's farm. However, the protagonist has no intention of passively watching aliens rob his kennel. That's why he tries to stop intruders with the help of hand-made home appliances and a futuristic laser gun.

The in-game campaign (Story Mode) offers 46 levels of increasing difficulty and 18 special challenges. As befits a tower defense strategy, it is the player's job to prevent the waves of enemies from reaching their target, the cows. This requires a carefully planned deployment of defence equipment along the road that the invaders have to cover.

The creators showed considerable inventiveness, both in terms of types of opponents and mechanisms to fight them. Green aliens include monkey pirates, crazy scientists, and even Martian ninjas. Equipment such as a fridge, saturator and fuel distributor are helpful in the fight against them. An unusual solution is a laser gun, which the player can shoot enemies with his own hands.

From the technical side Beware Planet Earth! It takes advantage of the capabilities of the Black Hand proprietary engine. The two-dimensional graphics in the game, captivating with its intense colours, is stylized as a cartoon. Developers also took care of a large number of funny accents and animations (e.g. cows drinking cola and cosmic-rockmani).

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Last updated on 17 September 2013