Game Review: Project Sunburst

December 16, 2010 | By andrewbares

Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst is a truly innovative game title exclusive to Windows Phone 7! (Video Review)

Overall Score: 5/5

The game is packed full with incredible features, but unfortunately doesn’t always deliver those features. Despite the occasional hiccups, Project Sunburst takes its own spin on Tower Defense and sets the battle field in the real world in an engaging and addicting fashion that is sure to keep you coming back for more.

Gameplay: 5/5

There are so many elements to talk about. To start, the game is similar to Tower Defense: You start with a base and defend it with various turrets. However, Project Sunburst takes a drastic change from the start, since you place your base in the real world, on a satellite map from Bing! Then, your enemies charge down the actual streets in the real world. You can therefore choose to defend your home, your workplace, or anything else you like. Also, the game keeps on playing after you exit it. That means your bases will continue to kill enemies and make money, and your weapon upgrades will continue to process as you do other things in your life. And, if you play the game at nighttime instead of daylight, the gameplay inside the phone will shift accordingly! There were some minor issues, for example, there was the occasional connection to server error and we unfortunately could not get multiplayer working (this game has actual live online multiplayer), but these few problems are offset by the stellar qualities of gameplay Project Sunburst brings.

Presentation: 4/5

The visuals are quite neat. Watching familiar city streets or neighborhood suburbs fill with swarms of enemies (called “Freaks”) is really neat. Playing the game at nighttime features some nice lighting effects too. The enemies aren’t the best visual quality, but the rest of the visuals are pretty good. The sounds are okay, but the repetitive sound of your laser cannon firing or your machine gun blasting becomes slightly annoying. If they had some variation in the sound effects, that would definitely help. However, you can always listen to your own music instead.

Lasting Value: 5/5

Due to the way this game is developed, you could only play it for 30 minutes… but return to it every day, since it continues to play while you’re gone! And you most likely will want to keep on playing this. The weapon upgrade system gives you great motive to continue playing and earning money, and the real world immersion entices you to come back and create more bases at your favorite locations.

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Title: Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst
Price: $2.99
Developer: Microsoft Game Studios

About Andrew Bares

As an avid gamer, I see the Windows Phone as a solid platform for mobile gaming. I will review almost every WP7 game and give you an idea if it is worth your money or not! In addition to gaming, I have been using Windows Mobile since 2005, and understand just about everything there is to know about the Windows Phone platform. Xbox Gamertag: DirtSurfer07 (add me!)

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Tagged game review, WP7 Game Reviews, WP7GameExclusive, xbox live

elyl

Seems every WP7 game is 5/5 or 4/5.

Or the reviewer's not a very good critic.

Can't quite decide which…
Abraham

Or perhaps simply reviewing the good titles? I remember way back, on Joystiq, there were reviews of Carneyvale and de Blob, both of which received 4s or 5s. Certainly most games reviewed in recent memory here have been at least as good as, if not better than, those two (and I say that as someone who very much enjoyed Carneyvale).
wantstoplaycrackdown

Due to the way this game is developed, you could only play it for 30 minutes…

Can you expand on that. I can't try it until later today.

Dan

I bought and played the game already. he's referring to time of one session. For instance, a gun upgrade takes 2 hours and a base upgrade takes 8 hours (real time). So you'd play enough to upgrade your items and then come back later once everything has been completed. You could keep playing while they are upgrading though if you wanted. However, you can have multiple bases so there is enough to do to keep you occupied for a decent amount of time! I'd recommend getting this game, it's awesome defending your home/school from freaks

Adam G

Okay, am I missing something here? I was really excited to play this, but when I finally got connected to the servers and set up bases, there seemed to not be a whole lot to do. You start them game with some absurd amount of money and items necessary to upgrade your bases. There is no sense of scarcity at all. Also, most tower defense games allow you to continue building, but again with no scarcity in funds I don't know how this would be interesting.
Adam G

Hmmmmm, I just noticed on your screen you have very little money, perhaps there is a bug where some users start instantly rich?

Michael Parker

Are you sure you aren't still in the tutorial? You have lots of money and resources in the tutorial, but in the actual game you only have enough money to start with one or two good towers and a free machine gun. Also there are a variety of other resources that you need to upgrade your towers and defenses – sand, metal, power supplies, etc, that you acquire through missions and scavenging. After the first round or two on your first base then you'll find that money won't be much of a real constraint. It may help that one of my bases is on a straight stretch of isolated road, which causes the freaks to line up on that highway for efficient disposal by my two lasers, making me $3k-$4k per shot. The money and resources from all your bases are pooled together, so once you've got your first successful base you're set for expansion.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546684223 Matt Hidinger

The game is definitely a little buggy. The first map is a tutorial that you have to play the entire way through — but they don't really tell you that. Everytime my phone would lock it would make me start completely over on the tutorial. They should tell explain better than when you click Play the first time you have to play the tutorial level.

Also, I see in your screenshot you have limited funds — I wish that was the same for me. I have created 4 bases now, been playing the game for 2 days, and I have all the $99,999,999 that I got from the tutorial level. So I don't really get to appreciate the game for what it is, and since it's all "cloud-storage" tied to my gamertag, even when I uninstall and reinstall I have all the same money and bases.

I hope they patch it soon and remove any money I didn't actually earn.

Other than that, Best phone game ever!

Adam G

That's my issue as well. Once I finished the tutorial I attempted to start a new game. I was allowed to choose a spot for my base, but I still had the $99M that I had in the tutorial.

Abraham

It's gotta be a bug. I started out with practically nothing. Perhaps try creating a new agent?

Adam G

Creating a new agent seems to have worked. Thanks. Uninstalling/Reinstalling did not.

http://www.modaco.com ashwarner

$2.99 or £2.49 in the UK I wish we could pay the cheaper price, current exchange rate should mean we should not be paying any more than £2.00 and that's still meand we have to pay an extra 25% markup.
http://www.modaco.com ashwarner

25% markup on the current price, not the recalculated price if it was a fairer system

markcr

Doesn't the UK have a Value Added Tax built into the price? wouldn't that explain much of the difference?

http://www.modaco.com ashwarner

That is what I thought may be the issue and in the US there may be a state tax added after?
If it was VAT then it should only be 17.5% at the moment.

andrewbares

Correct. Taxes in the US (and in the US Windows Phone Marketplace) are added after the purchase. I think they must use Washington's state tax rate (where Microsoft is located), since the rate looks like it is around 6.5% tax for me. You folks pay a lot more in taxes :O

http://twitter.com/Bigsro @Bigsro

Anyone having issues with the achievements on this – I have unlocked 6 ( I think) so far and this is showing on my phone in my gamerscore – yet when I click further into Xbox Live extras to look at my profile none of the achievements are shown?!

Just logged into Xbox.com and the game is showing the correct date as to when it was last played but my last achievement was from the other day with Assasins Creed Brotherhood.

The game is defo buggy as a few times I have launched the games the Achievement notifications have popped up.

Anyone else in the same boat?

Oh and I think £2.49 is a good price for a game

andrewbares

My achievements are showing just fine on Xbox Live, but I could see how this could be buggy enough for achievements not to show. I'm sorry those aren't working for you!
Jules

Same Here
Playing the game in the UK, and I build up some achievements within the game, But I get an error when attempting connect to XBox live Server , so cannot accumulate XBox Live achievements.

Mikie

I still cannot connect to the sunburst server so i can only only play the tutorial on my HTC mozart