Anomaly 2 comes to Android (and it is beautiful)

The gaming ecosystem on Android is certainly getting better, but it still falls behind iOS with the release of first-rate, high-quality titles.

When Anomaly 2 was released for Apple’s mobile OS earlier this month, I was disappointed to find it absent from Google Play. This reverse tower defence game is the sequel to the hugely popular Anomaly Warzone Earth HD and Anomaly Korea titles, and puts you in the role of the attackers running through a grid of very angry, very capable defenders.

Now that it’s available for Android, it’s clear that the extra time was taken to ensure a fantastic experience across a multitude of devices; the graphics are stunning and frame rates, at least on the latest-gen devices on which I demoed it, are smooth as butter. There’s a level of detail here that I haven’t really seen before — think Riptide GP2 or Real Racing 3 levels — on a mobile device, and it really taxes the GPU. (In fact, 11 bit Studios, the game’s developer, released an Anomaly 2 Benchmark app to test various Android devices’ capabilities in the run-up to its release.)

At $4.99 and 1.43GB, the game is neither cheap nor small, but the care that has been taken to improve upon the previous titles is apparent. In this version, you can morph your troops into huge mechs, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. The game also includes multiplayer for the first time, though the single player campaign is the focus here. It is long, story-oriented (as much as a game like this can be) and does not include any in-app purchases. What you see is what you get here, folks.

Finally, the game is also tablet-optimized to ensure that large screen users get the best possible experience.

The game was also released on BlackBerry 10 this week, too, for $4.99.

[source]Google Play[/source]