Pixel Junk Monsters - PSN

This game has been out for awhile now and most everyone I talked too said that it was a great game. Well I think all those people must have been somewhat of a RTS fan, I think you have to be to a certain degree. Sure this game is cute enough to be a regular fun time. But then you get to a point and you just die and die.

And I don't mean dieing on the harder levels, No I mean dieing on Easy Level 1-4 or Level 1-3. Sheesh, shouldn't I be flying through these levels. Why do I keep dieing??

I said before that I think am missing some fundamental game mechanic that makes me horrible with any RTS. All other RTS's that I have played were on the PC and normally I use the give me infinity money cheat and just keep building and building.

Well, I had enough of this I wanted to know what I was doing wrong. So I went looking, and guess what? I found out some very important things that really makes the difference between winning and dieing really fast.

1)Knowing What's Coming Next.
There is no way around this pain in the butt. You HAVE to know what is coming next, what wave of enemies are going to show up now, how many? Sure it shows you what is going to be the NEXT enemy, but like chess, this is not good enough. You have to prepare 3-4 waves in advanced. If you are currently building ground towers for ground enemies and the next wave are flyers. You build a couple of anti air towers, and the next couple of waves are ground units.

So you spend your time upgrading and building ground units. Then all of sudden the next round is flyers again. But you only have 2 air towers and none of them are upgraded. So you frantically build a few more air towers and try to upgrade if you can. But by this time, its too late. If only I had known about these 4 moves ago.

AND KNOWING 3-4 moves ahead DOES mean the difference between winning and failure.

2) UpGrading Towers Instead of Building More
I would mainly spend my time building 8 ground towers and upgrading when I can.But yet, I still was dieing. What you should do, is build 2-3 towers and upgrade them to Max ,asap!!
This is me trying to put up a good defense, I figure a lot of towers is better than a few. But you be surprised how effective a fully upgraded tower is compared to many 1st level towers.
Again, knowing what comes next really helps with what to upgrade next.

3) Selling Towers
This is something that I never done. I just spend half the round upgrading this tower only to tear it down and build something different. BUT AGAIN, this is made easier by knowing what's coming 3-4 rounds ahead.


But I always feel that I spent time into it, I will just leave it there and build around it. But you be surprised the difference ONE tower made in a game. It really is that picky.

So overall, knowing what enemy is coming next is the THEME here. So these games are alot trial and error. But once you do know what enemies are coming next, holy cow. The game went from being frustrating to fun. What a difference, it was like getting glasses for the first time, "I CAN SEE"

Even on the later harder levels, I was having trouble and still knowing what was coming up next didn't help. At the harder levels it was very strongly dependent on placement of towers. A little to the left or right which shows their attack radius means enemies get destroyed or the enemies walk outside your attack radius unharmed. The harder levels were more frustrating, but more satisfying has well when you finally did finish it.


I realize that I didn't talk about the game itself, but more or less what I was doing wrong. I WAS playing the game wrong. It was like I was playing a FPS but only using the right analog stick to move. Kinda makes it hard to play like that!

BUT after I learned how to play the game correctly, the game was very fun and enjoyable and can be played with two players. I really like the art style and the music is very cutesy. I didn't like it enough to buy the DLC maps. But for fans of RTS's, you probable won't be disappointed, for everyone else.... Its a great title and worth the discounted price that it is currently selling at.

Heres a video on how to beat one of the more difficult levels. Don't waste time, alwasy be doing something.