Gaming: Breaking Earth Must Die Review
An inventive puzzler with rapid-fire gags that'll make you groan as much as guffaw.
PC Gamer's got your back
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
What is it? An extremely cheeky sci-fi adventure romp.
VValak Lizardtongue, Grand Shepherd of the Tyrythian Ascendancy, isn't a born leader. For one, he wasn't actually meant to sit on the throne—until he orchestrated the death of his very large brothers. Also: he's an idiot, a coward, and his sole advisor (and friend) is a tiny floating robot full of milk whose sole purpose is to nurse babies. Her name is Milky.
He's really the last person you want running the show when your home's being invaded by a bunch of weirdos from a very silly planet known as Earth. He's not the hero we need, but he's the only one we've got. The Ascendancy is screwed.
Developer Size Five Games has returned to its point-and-click roots after dabbling in football, stealth and platforming (though 2020's Lair of the Clockwork God was also half of an adventure game). Nostalgia is the name of the game here, with Earth Must Die simultaneously evoking the comedy puzzlers of the '90s along with vintage Cartoon Network and Adult Swim shows.
Earth Must Die will never say no to low-hanging fruit.
It is a rapid-fire gag machine where each scene is just as eager to spit out joke after joke as it is to get your little grey cells working. There are some incredibly inventive, playful puzzles blessed with brilliant high-concept setups, but at the same time it finds orgies, sex shops and genitalia as hilarious and baffling as you may have, when you were 14.
Earth Must Die will never say no to low-hanging fruit, which I confess did elicit a fair few chuckles out of me, because I am a very childish 40 year old. But it can also be a bit exhausting, especially when it undermines moments that would otherwise be pretty clever.
Take the quest to fix a large button. VValak needs to get one of his minions to scan for new planets to destroy. It's fun to destroy planets, but this is a practical concern, as this is the only way the Ascendency can get its hands on the pink goo that fuels it. After dealing with far too much bureaucracy, the scanning is ready to commence, but it's been so long that the connection between the scanner and the button to activate it has atrophied.
Source: PC Gamer
