I liked infested planet. I bought the game on a bit of a whim when it was on sale, and it had been sitting in my gift inventory. All I really knew about it was that you ordered people around and they shot aliens. Which sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, really.

And it is.

The basic premise of the levels is that you start with a single capture point, and you must destroy the alien hives which sit atop their own capture points, until you control the map. With each point you capture you get more resources (called Build Points) and the alien army 'mutates' and creates an additional complication that you must overcome.

The game plays at a great pace. It's always tense, and yet, when you take a step back, the gameplay actually evolves slowly. You'll often find yourself wondering if you really need to drop a turret to cover an alien attack, or if you could just spare a single marine and spend the resources for the turret elsewhere, and all the while the lines of battle are being pushed and pulled. It's a great feeling.

And those choices. Those options! There are so many different things you can do. There are three main 'classes' of upgrades you can spend points on: weapons for your soldiers, localised power buildings like turrets or healing crates, or global upgrades that can do all manner of things from giving your soldiers grenades to having reinforcements dropped in by helicopter mid-fight. The best thing of all? They're practically all valid courses of play. Everything feels balanced and nice.

I mean look; there's a building that summons robotic clones of your soldiers when they die that fight on for a while. This means that yes: suicide missions are possible. And sometimes they are even optimum. If you -need- to capture that next point before the next attack wave comes in, and you don't have enough points for something to siege with, then an all out infantry rush might just do the trick.

Then there's the opponent. The alien swarm controlled by the AI. Here's another thing that's been done really well. While I was playing I got the distinct impression that behind the alien swarm was another player. Or at least another thing playing its own game. It had different rules to me, but it had to abide by them nonetheless. Each mutation the aliens choose have a profound impact on your play and options. You might be happily shotgunning the swarm one moment, but with the next capture suddenly the alien has consolidated its power into pseudo-human guardians, and you need to swap out your cheep shotguns for expensive sniper rifles. At higher difficulties the AI even counter-picks you. For example, if you invest in a lot of personnel upgrades, the aliens will send clones of them. I hope you know how to deal with the very same minigunners that you had waltzing right back towards your bunkers!

The game doesn't look the prettiest, and the sounds are okay, but what it does well is the gameplay, and it does that amazingly.

So now we have to ask. Do I think this is worth 15$? For myself? Surely. For anyone on the fence, I can say with certainty that it is worth your time and your money.

You like endless swarm of swarms to shoot, burn, blow up and stuff ?
Well this game is for you.
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Pros:
True endless swarm, no time limit, no kill limit, no spawn limit.
Amazing balance, you'll often reach status quo with the swarm, were neither of you can advance.
The gradual difficulty, which often make the single last hive much harder than when there were 7 of them.
The diversity, you can play solely with marines, or with just one to build dozens of towers, or a mix of both.
Cons:
The game might get repetitive with time, in the same way a sandbox game can become.
Very step but short learning curve. You'll loose the first few games thinking it's damn impossible, and when you finaly figure out how you wanna play, expert mode seems more like normal.
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Also my best buy of the steam sales.

Concept: 10 / 10
AI / controls: 6.5 / 10
Mission design: 0 / 10

The core mechanics of this game are good. The early stages are fun, and the shop system makes you want to keep coming back. The targeting AI for your marines is meh, but not bad enough to ruin the game. The first half of the story missions are of acceptable quality.

The second half of the game is a complete mess. Later missions contain game-ending events, and unless you take an extremely specific set of precautions, you're dead. The only way to beat some of these stages is to play them over and over until you learn the stage in advance, and specifically play to avoid the pitfalls you know are coming.

The ambush mission is a great example. You simply spawn at the top of the map, and alien hives randomly appear around you. You have two directions to go, but one (securing the top of the map) isn't the "correct" way, and you'll die every time if you go there. If you try to defend your starting point (an extremely logical move), you will die because alien hives appear under you for the rest of the stage until you die. The "correct" answer to the stage is to fall back and let the aliens destroy everything as you retreat. If you attempt any other strategy, you'll die. There is no indication that this is the correct answer. And that's what makes it so infuriating.

If the level design wasn't so tremendously bad in the last half of the game, I could recommend. Right now though it's just a $15 pile of frustration that will last you about 20 hours, tops.

Hands down, this is one of the best RTS games I've ever played. What makes it different from the rest of the genre? Well, for every alien base you capture, you get points that can be spent on units and buldings - but you can also sell what you have and re-distribute your points when needed (units respawn after a little while when they die).

This makes for very interesting and rewarding gameplay, as you don't have to start over from scratch when they start to defeat you. Simply fall back, rethink your strategy and redistribute your points if necessary. You can also browse the map and give commands while the game is paused, removing the need for super-reflexes and making it easier to deploy your tactics, however detailed they might be. The graphics and explosions are also very satisfying - you really feel you crush these nasty critters :)

All in all, a very rewarding game that doesn't require full-time dedication to get into, while continuing to provide an enjoyable experience even after the 100th game. I find myself going back to this once in a while for a game or two.

This game is a hidden gem; way better than Starcraft 2.

If Infested Planet were a kitchen utensil, it would be a whisk - success comes by flailing it about for a short period of time.

I would recommend this game to anyone who likes whisks.

On a scale of 1 - 10:

Gameplay: spatula
Graphics / Presentation: pie lifter
Story: corncob holders

Overall: good silverware place setting for 4 with two knives missing

Great addition to RTS collection if one likes that genre. Command your starshiptroopers to victory against the horde.

Let me put it this way, if you are decent at RTS genre(hotkeys over mouseclicking) and you have the patience to learn few tactics to beat different kind enemies. You will enjoy this game. The game has a good way to help if you get stuck with one time use soldiers so don't be afraid of the alien hordes. Check TB's WTF is... for good gameplay preview if still on the edge.

Great strategy game! I picked this up during a steam sale dirt cheap and had a blast playing it. It reminds me of the fast paced RTS rush you'd get from the early Command and Conquer games. Base building is streamlined to the point of you deploy exactly what you want quickly, and the second you don't need that item anymore switch it out for another. Very enjoyable game. Hoping for an expansion or DLC pack in the future to expand on the game. Quite a few missions and achievements to go after, but after that you're left wanting more. Skirmish mode is fun to tinker with, and will most likely tie me over till new content arrives (which sounds like the developers are working on)

A simple, challenging game. I have some stability issues, it tends to crash after a few hours, but other than that it's great. I keep coming back to it because it's a good choice to waste 30 minutes of time, and it's so simple that you dont have to spend any time relearning the game. As others have noted, the random nature of the levels and enemy upgrades can sometimes make a particular level nearly impossible to complete, but if you surrender you get to keep all the single-mission upgrades you purchased, and you get cash for all the swarm you have killed so far, so when you try again you are in a better position to win.

This game is difficult, youll be stretched thin trying to figure out where to place troops so that the aliens dont overrun one front while pushing on another and praying the retaliation isnt too strong. Depth overall is pretty low but it is really well polished and balancing troop types/buildings to gain an advantage against the waves of aliens is very addicting. At $15 its a high price but overall id say its worth it.

I keep coming back to the game because its great for jumping in, playing a few rounds and moving on.

Channeling a little Starship Troopers with a sprinkle of Cannon Fodder, Infested Planet is a very specialized kind of real-time strategy game. What it lacks in production values it makes up for with inventive gameplay that centers around “stemming the tide”. As you progress through the silly B-grade plot of the campaign - which harkens back to 90s video game storytelling - you face off against alien hives that spawn infinite enemies. Hundreds of alien grubs are constantly flowing towards your bases and marines. It’s a bit like a puzzle game, figuring out which marines to use for defense, where to place turrets, and which hives to take out first.

When you destroy a hive, it becomes an additional base for your side and you gain “BP”, points added to a pool you draw from when building facilities, calling in more marines, or changing marines into different classes like Flamethrower or Sniper. You can undo your choices at any time to get the points back, and fluidly adapting to the situation becomes required. When you take a hive, the remaining hives on the map get a random mutation that can drastically alter the situation. Even if you fail a mission, you earn some money which can be used to unlock permanent upgrades or temporary boosts for the next mission.

Love this game! It's so well made. A neat idea well executed and well presented. I love the current trend for 'survival' games and 'walking simulator', but sometimes it's just good to have a game with the immediacy and pace of Invested Planet.

In my opinion this is one of the BEST games of 2014!

Lovely, simple, progressively harder, nice global challenege. User interface very smooth, nice use of hot keys to speed up response which becomes increasingly needed as the hordes of bugs approach. Difficult not to cpare it with the classic star ship troopers, if you've seen that movie you know what you will be getting; fast and furious action with space marines vs endless hordes. Wouldn't want to underplay the strategic element which keeps you coming back for more.

I’ll keep this brief…”Infested Planet”, in my opinion, is a must-buy. It offers so much for its fifteen dollar price tag (as of 3/7/14). The skirmish mode and the customization options available gives the game almost unlimited replay value. I can safely say that it will keep strategists like myself busy for months, even years to come. Do yourself a favor and pick this little gem up…you won’t be sorry. I’ll go as far as to say that “Infested Planet” is probably my favorite game since “FTL”, which is saying a lot. Excellent, excellent game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdWnToDUqbw

The difficulty is very unbalanced in this game. What starts out as an easy map can instantly turn into an impossible one due to random "mutations" the game throws at you. I'm not sure if I had bad luck or I was just playing it wrong but later levels were just ridiculously hard. After dying several times I finally realized it was no longer fun and uninstalled it.

Excellent game, it has an interesting story and challenging gameplay. The graphics are simple but it doesn't detract at all from the experience. The mechanics are solid, easy to learn, and I didn't experience any bugs (other than the ones I was shooting. lol) Lots of replayability and you can even go through the campaign again after you beat it with all the stuff you unlocked. I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes strategy games and killing thousands of aliens.

Great game. It's very cheap too, which really helps in my decision to buy.

With graphics, it's got a very nice visual style and the game still looks great ultra-zoomed in.

Gameplay is nice, however it is a bit repetitive. This is no problem for me at all, I like the repetitive nature of the game and there is a lot of upgrades and buildings/weapons to try and shake it up.

The game has you as a commander of a marine team facing huge hordes of thousands of aliens, and the gameplay really stands out as unique with the gradual progression of fighting back against the alien horde.

You can always try out the free game 'Attack of the Paper Zombies' made by the same devs quite a while before this game to see what this game is like. 'Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal' is also a nice similar game.

If you like difficulty over actual content. if you have unlimited patience to play the same missions over and over again. if you like being spread to thin and have so much going on you dont know where to begin. then this is the game for you! its not a good game for me however. i stopped ejoying my self around mission 5 and just spent time getting money. and dreading the next mission. so much so that i will simply not play it anymore. i got about 6 good (enjoyable) hours i payed 7.50 if it dosnt add up to at least a dollar an hour of enjoyment then it wasnt worth the money.

Don't let my "not recommended" discourage you too much. It's a cool game, but it's not for me.

My biggest issue with it is I found it difficult to play, and I found it difficult / unintuitive to adapt to or understand what was going on. Maybe the strategy involved more micromanagement than I'd like. - Even maxing out the "buy bonus help for this level" didn't give me an overwhelming advantage; so I'm not particularly good at this kindof thing, and/or the game isn't particularly easy like that.

It's still a cool kindof game, and reminds me of the likes of Starship Troopers.

This game has been one of the most pleasant surprises this year for me. I love "marines vs aliens" games, and I found out about this game accidentally. In the beginning I was dubious to buy it because of the below-average graphics. In the end, I decided to go ahead thanks to other gamers' reviews, some specialized magazine impressions and that it was on sale for half the price. And what a good decision it was, as Infested Planet is a joy to play. So far I am about 10 hours played, and still having a blast just like the first time.

Let me speak a bit of what this game is about: It is a blend of RTS and Tower-defense genres, though instead of TD's typical waves you have to face a constant stream of dozens of thousands aliens. The key in this game is to control the huge constant flow of enemies with a handful of marines, with the help of quite different loadouts (sniper guns, shotguns, flamethrowers...) and the support of several buildings that add various passive buffs (like health regeneration, grenades for your marines, so on) and active abilities (aerial support, different turrets deployments...).

In order to win, you have to conquer all aliens' nests, which act like some kind of hardpoint bases. Once you destroy one nest, and conquer it, you build one of your bases on top of it. This act gives you points that you can invest on upgrading your marine's arsenal, build support facilities or deploy turrets/mines. These variation lets you try very different tactics and approaches. However, the aliens also gain "evolution" perks when they loose one nest, making them tougher to win. These perks vary from match to match (like the map, which is randomized), but include faster creatures, more range for their turrets, improved poisons and so on.

The difficulty is challenging but fair, and the first campaign's missions make it easier for you to catch the ropes of the game.

There are a few game modes. The first one is the campaign, where you advance by winning somewhat-varied scenarios. While you advance, you will find side-missions which are randomized but belong to three different modes: "Domination", where you have to overcome all nests against difficult odds, "Survival", where you have to survive for a period of time, and "Go-Go faster" where you have a limited time to capture the next nest.

In spite of the campaign looking short so far (I think I will beat it in about 15 hours), there is a lot of replayability, thanks to the different game modes, and weekly challenges where you can compare your performance against other players.

In summary: If you can forget about the graphics, and like "marines vs. aliens" games, you will find in this game a precious little gem that can keep you entertained for 20 hours or more. Recommended!!!!

The game has very good game mechanics, an interesting campaign, and a highly configurable skirmish mode.
It's one of my current favorites.