They Are Billions Review: Doctor’s Assessment

Subjective:

They Are Billions presents for review as a game that tosses you into a world of zombie invasion but plenty of tools to defend yourself from the oncoming hordes.

Objective:

Developed by Numantian Games, They Are Billions is a real-time strategy (RTS) survival game. It offers somewhat of a twist on your traditional RTS games that have been recently released.

Assessment:

Many RTS games can be found on the PC platform and have been popular since the very beginning days of PC gaming. Many have added their own art style or flavor to controlling armies taking over territories like an action packed game of Risk. They Are Billions may look just like another standard strategy game, however, it has some very distinct elements that set it apart from its predecessors.

First and most importantly, it is you vs. the zombie hordes, not another player or another evenly matched AI with the same tools. The world you are dropped into is infested with zombies and you simply have to defend your community against the horde for a set number of days. The game does not offer any in-depth tutorial, instead starting with a base and some building options to explore. The PC version does have a more traditional campaign mode not yet available on the PlayStation 4 release.

Before I jump into the details of the game, I must address the control options because this will make a very large difference in your experience. As veteran gamers will attest, any RTS is best controlled with a mouse and keyboard. This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4 and I knew immediately it was going to be tough with a controller until I noticed options for a Mouse and Keyboard in the options. I plugged in a standard USB mouse and keyboard and the game was instantly easier. I highly recommend doing the same. It will be significantly easier to navigate and review build options than using your controller. With that being said, it is entirely playable with the controller but will require a long time to familiarize yourself with the quickest way to navigate.

When you start a new game, you will be presented with some options to help boost the difficultly or scale it back. You are then dropped into the game with a handful of soldiers to command and a base to build additional structures. You have to carefully juggle farming resources but also determine how to defend your base at the same time. This balancing act takes some trial and error, but once you figure out the units and resources you will need the game starts to make sense. If you hover over options you can always preview your actions as well. As time progresses, you will also be able to pick a mayor with different perks. You can choose this according to your play style or help advance a particular build you are trying.

Zombies will wander up to your walls slowly but eventually will come in bigger waves. They will “infect” buildings that you will need to repair, otherwise you will be completely wiped out with a zombie invasion! One very important feature of They Are Billions is your ability to pause with one button press to navigate and plan your strategy. This helps the less seasoned player better prepare or carefully build a nice protective fence.

The visuals are all in a steampunk/Victorian style and look great on the big screen. You also have the ability to view the build grid to help aide on building placements. I would suggest a bigger monitor as you will see a lot of text on screen, not to mention the large hordes of zombies. You want to be able to read/see everything as there is a lot on screen to see.

The sound of units is appropriate and the music is also fitting. I had no issue with turning the sound up and just getting absorbed into my building strategies. The positional audio is nicely implemented and I could always tell from which side my base was being attacked. Your minimap will also indicate attack locations. The menus are clean, easy to read, and if you hover over any item, you will see the hotkey and the stats of any unit. However, expect to lose quite a few games before you get the hang of how things work. With that said I would still not suggest looking at guides online, as part of the fun is figuring out a good build order.