Reviews - QFSW

Brink of Extinction is a small but rich tower defense set in a post apocalyptic future. If you enjoy tower defenses then I would give this a try, especially if you enjoy strategy and planning ahead.

The game certainly leads on the difficult side. You start of with a large pool of credits, and get a couple of bucks for each enemy you kill, more money the stronger they are. This results in your initial placement and planning being crucial; not to say you can't change things up mid game, but it can be quite hard to recover from a really bad plan at the beginning. Make no mistake, this game is hard, and you will need to play some levels multiple times to see which strategies do and don't work. If you don't enjoy repeating a level and getting better at it each time till you win, you might not like this, however I found that to be part of its appeal. It forces you to really think about what you're doing.

The enemy and turret diversity is fairly good. Whilst I gravitate to a preferred few turrets, different turrets are better for different jobs. The diversity in the enemies forces you to build different turrets and also use the different targetting modes (strongest, weakest, furthest and nearest) to ensure nothing sneaks through your defenses.

At the time of writing this I'm halfway through the campaign, so I still have a lot to see, but in my opinion the endless levels are my favourite part of the game. You start of with such a large pool of credits, that you constantly switch between feeling godlike and feeling destroyed throughout the level; highly recommend if you enjoy beating your personal best score.

Graphically it's quite impressive, certainly the best I've seen from the TD genre. Jagged edges are unfortunately quite prominent but if you have the horsepower you can slide up the res scale to make them unnoticable; in truth they aren't too much of a bother, given the more static nature of the game. The lighting is quite good. For reference I ran it at 1080p, max settings, 1.3x res on a 970 and 4790k, and got about 55-60fps. Whilst the game is on the taxing side at higher settings, its performance is very stable and I havn't encountered any dips or spikes which is a pleasure.

The score is very immersive and quite impressive. It has a very cold feel and fits the atmosphere very well, not much more to say about it.

TL;DR

Pros:
+Graphics
+Music
+Enemy and Turret Diversity

Cons:
-Lack of Difficulty Modes (don't worry, it's challenging, but if you suck you might not be able to get too far in the campaign)
-Not as suitable for shorter play sessions (especially endless mode, although it depends on how good you are)

Refreshing take on tower defence that manages to incoorporate a lot more planning and strategy than most, however can leave a bit to be desired at times in terms of how redoing your defense mid game.
8/10