They Are Billions

Review by Leemo

Allow me to start by telling you that I absolutely freaking love these types of games.

I have always been a fan of top-down strategy games be it Command and Conquer or Age of Empires.

From here on in I shall refer to They are Billions as TaB.

Games like TaB are so easily done wrong. They are a pound-a-penny with many different objectives and scenarios, but the ones are done right stick in your mind as a game for the ages.

It is unlikely that anyone will ever forget C&C or AoE. TaB could very likely be one of those. So anyway enough fluff let me give you the meat of it.

The main idea of TaB is to explore, defend, build-out and defend again. Whilst defence is paramount to the whole game, exploration is also extremely important.

You need to venture out of your safe spot to find out where the best resources are which brings me to the next point. All around the map, there will be tree’s to cut down, stone to mine, gold to harvest, and water to fish in.

You’ll need to make sure you have plenty of farming space as feeding your army/workforce is mightily important. Once you’re all set up with your economy it’s time to start the defences.

This is where the fun really begins. My preference is to build a few buildings then separate sections of the base with walls and towers. Creativity is key when building and defending, find what works with you and use it.

You will lose a lot, you might get pants starting location with little in the way of natural resources meaning you’ll have to expand farther than originally desired. During the course of the game, you’ll hear a warning that a swarm of zombies are moving towards your base.

Whilst that will give you a rough idea of where they are coming from, your defences will be stretched and you will rapidly lose houses, farms and personnel. Each level has a different difficulty which not only increases difficulty in the number of enemies that attack you but the deadline for the Endgame…

The Endgame is, as you might suspect, the end of the level. After everything you’ve previously fought through, this is where your “super” up defences, wall sections, traps, troops and experience comes into play. You won’t face a swarm but an enormous horde of seemingly endless zombies.

They will attack you from all sides and are relentless (They Are Billions). Chances are you will be wholly unprepared for it on your first try though, later tries will of course change that. Should you manage to stop the horde you will be given a new map to play on and congrats for making it.

My biggest gripe with TaB is the performance and slight frame rate issues granted I don’t have the Playstation Pro but you may find that extended time in-game will result in laggy gameplay and a couple of glitches.

A few tips and tricks if you’re so inclined to hear about them;

• First, explore. You need to explore to find out where the best resources are but also you don’t want to accidentally stumble upon a random group of brain munchers.
• Next is planning out where your defences will be of best use. For example, can you use natural choke points to your advantage to create a kill zone?
• The third point is to upgrade all the time if you can upgrade then do it don’t wait. Upgrades will keep your peeps alive.
• Last but certainly not least is to invest in the uber structures. These buildings will make your life 10x easier from providing a boatload of power with the tesla tower to the crystal palace which provides a huge boost to food production.

All in all, there this will be a large learning curve but once you have achieved a basic understanding of the mechanics you will begin to crave more.

I really like this game I have spent longer on it than needed. Well into the future for me, it will be an all-time favourite. If you are a fan of top-down strategy with a love of exterminating countless zombies then this is without a doubt the perfect game for you.

So onto the score. All things considered, TaB gets a huge thumbs up.

Overall score given 9/10.

there is room for improvement but honestly not a lot. A great game, pick it up. You can get it from the Playstation Store for a very reasonable £22.49