Review by Colin Phipps

"Invasion - The Siege" is a single level, designed as a prequel to the INVADE series. The plot is very important to the level, you really won't understand the level without reading it. Basically you are the commander of a taskforce that teleports into a base on Mars to defend against an alien invasion. Unusually, there are 3 outcomes to the level: death, escape (after killing as many badies as you can face), or defeating the demons completely. The whole thing is masterminded by a demon spawner ala Icon of Sin.

Architecturally, the base is a gray cement blob, not very interesting. There are enough details to make sure the level ties in with the plot at least. The area around the base is... barren, as you'd expect, except for a couple of buildings where the demons seem to be based; one of these was hellish style, the other was techish. The techism one wasn't as bad as the rest I guess.

Gameplay is interesting. You get most of the weapons and max ammo at the start; if you choose, you can just fight it out from inside the base, killing as many as possible before exiting. Really you want to go for the real challenge though... exit the base, run down the valley, blitz the enemy base and blast the spawner. Took me a couple of exploratory tries, then a couple of real tries to beat it.

Overall, it's a challenge, and an unusual design of level. It's almost compulsorary to do exploring missions before a real one to beat the spawner (locating it,, surviving the hordes of enemies, and then beating it all in one run seems unlikely to me), which some people may not like.