Greed Corp review

Greed Corp brings a whole new meaning to the words 'resource management'. Here the resource isn't gold, or geysers, or forests. It's the very ground you walk on, each block of which can be mined and drained until it crumbles into the abyss. It's this that gives the game a unique kind of strategy.

You need resources to build troops and buildings, but the harvesting of those resources limits your tactical options. It's an inversion of the way classic RTS games play out: instead of slowly getting more powerful over the course of a game, you're weakening yourself, just to keep up with your opponents. By the end of a match, you're lucky if there's more than one or two solitary islands jutting out of the nebulous clouds that blanket the distant ground.

There's a thick layer of charm to prevent you getting too hung up on the despair of our resource-hungry world, with cute robotic walkers serving as your troops, and scratchy jazz wafting in and out of earshot occasionally as you play. There's even a day and night cycle, the buildings lighting up as the sun sets.

If it sounds simple, that's because, on the face of it, Greed Corp is. But the more you play, the more tactics start to emerge, presenting you with the option for short term investment in troops, or long term investment in carriers and cannons. Do you plant a harvester on your opponent's land to mine him into oblivion, or try to take that land for yourself, to further your economy? And while the campaign is relatively rudimentary, the opportunity for using and abusing these shrewd tactics online against friends or strangers more than justifies the asking price.