I first entered the lives of the Darwinians in 2005 with the original Darwinia for PC. In 2008, I once again led masses of Darwinians to their victory and doom with Multiwinia. Now, players on Xbox 360 can play both with Darwinia+. This is a combination title allowing you to access both titles. This is also a direct port, with some Achievements for the 360 roughly thrown in.

The graphics for Darwinia+ do not vary from the original look of the game. The game's unique character comes from this style and you can't really mess with perfection. The 3D world, contrasted by its 2D inhabitants, is still a very fresh and beautifully stylized contrast. The style is a true testament to the adage "less is more."

Maddie the Cat's voice is still the basis for the dying Virii and Darwinians. Now that Calvin the Dog has joined with Carter the Cat in my house, they both sat and looked at the screen intently as I played. Every time a creature died, it let out a tiny scream produced from the meow of Maddie. There must have been a fairly strong element of animal essence left in the sound. I can only assume my pets were trying to figure out what was wrong with the animals they were hearing. The music offers this serene, open landscape-like tranquility, with wind and other seemingly natural sounds, that is only disturbed by the roar of battle and digital turmoil. The sounds and music play a huge part in the successful sense of immersion into the world.

Since Darwinia+ is actually two games shipped together, we have quite a bit to cover below. Both games are about getting Darwinians to help themselves.

The story of Darwinia is a classic one. The digital world of Darwinia was created by Dr. Sepulveda, who will narrate your journey and help with much needed research. Darwinia is inhabited by sentient digital life forms called Darwinians. You are instantly thrust into a conflict to retake Darwinia from an evil computer virus known as the Virii. Darwinians are independent lifeforms that have set about their world, which exists inside a super computer, creating their own beliefs and way of life. The only problem is that, like any computer, there are viruses that eventually creep in, leading up to a great war with the Virii.

Dr. Sepulveda will give you access to "programs" that will allow you to interact directly with the environment. In the beginning, there are three available spots in the Task Bar, allowing for three programs to be active and running in the world at any one time. Dr. Sepulveda will help you research ways to improve your task bar and allow you to use more programs at one time. This adds the ability to perform more than one action at a time, and hence, be more effective as you progress through Darwinia.

The first program you will want to create is a Squad. This group of armed, offensive soldiers is directly controllable to combat the red Virii menace. You use your Squad to clear the way for your other programs and Darwinians. You may then want to activate an Engineer program that has many useful functions. The first purpose for an Engineer program is to access nodes that the Virii have taken over, such as radar disks, which are used to beam over areas of the environment you can't travel over on foot. You will discover pieces of research that are randomly found in the environment. After the Engineer decodes these pieces of research, they allow for upgrades, weapons, and tools you will need later. Be sure to keep an eye on your research levels, as Dr. Sepulveda can only research one thing at a time to upgrade. If you do not pay attention, you can waste precious time on completed upgrades, which could be spent on another program. As you move along in the game, you then can create dual function tanks called Armors from your task bar. They act as both transport, and when commanded to do so, they transform into a stationary gun turret. These come in very handy when you need to deal massive damage, or hold positions.

Both your Squad and Darwinians will eventually have access to grenades, turrets and lasers. After successfully combating the Virii, the Engineer can collect the digital souls of fallen creatures in order to return them to an incubator module and grow new, green Darwinians.

Multiwinia rounds out this title. With Darwinia being the single player mission-based game we originally knew, we are presented with a wholly multiplayer experience in Multiwinia. The Xbox 360 is a great home for this side of the title. There is a single player version to Multiwinia, which can help you prepare for the players on Xbox Live, but actually I think it may be the other way around. There is more on this issue in the Difficulty section below.

You need to check out the tutorials section first. Controlling Darwinians here is different, and so are the roles of the Darwinians. Once you have started a game, choose the type of game you wish to play, choose your map, and then set the options for how you want to play your game. There are five different game types to choose from: Domination - where you, well, you dominate. King of the Hill - where you camp and hold points on the map. Capture the Statue - where you use the Darwinians to grab, lift and move a statue to your control point. Assault - where you attack and defend fortified areas. Rocket Riot - where you refuel and board your rocket to escape. Finally, there is Blitzkrieg - which is a steamroller of digital death and destruction. Not only do you have all of these options of the type of games to play, there are 49 maps to play in. The ability to be able to affect time, handicaps, and other map options leave you with thousands of gameplay combinations.

There is nothing friendly or cuddly about this game. When your Darwinians first take the field of battle, they tend to meander about and do their own thing. It is up to you to promote privileged Darwinians that will organize and mobilize your digital armies. You can grab individuals with a tool that looks not unlike that of the tool for Pikmin. Send them to collect Crate Drops from the battlefield. They hold reinforcements and tools to use during the fight. There are armored units here as well that will allow you to sprint past defenders. You can defend positions with mounted turrets. Besides the grab tool, and other stay/go commands, the appointed officer Darwinians can organize columns to move together in groups and shoot anything that moves. These organized columns react quicker and cleaner than a disorganized mass of Darwinians and move from point to point.

Both games are right at home on the Xbox 360. I wish that I didn't have to wait so long for them to get here from PC, but I am good with the results after their transition to Xbox 360. There were some hiccups to the transfer, which we will get into later, but in all, I was pleased with the crossover.

With Darwinia+, there is a very distinct difference between the two games' difficulty levels. There was a span of some years between the release of the two titles and both take very different approaches to the same back-story. Due to this, the differing style of both games creates very different levels of difficulty.

Darwinia is meant to be a playable single player experience. It is designed to tell a story and therefore, it is actually quite easy to get through in just a few sittings. There is a camera issue to rant about here but, in short, it was hard to see your enemy at times. There were times I couldn't see what I was shooting at - at all - because of the camera issue. When you can't see what you're shooting at, it raises the difficulty level up a few notches.

Multiwinia is a totally different story altogether, no pun intended. The non-human players are out to flat out punish you, in order to teach you what you need to know to be successful. Actually, I say just go ahead and start playing other humans before you play the single player version of the game. You will be more successful due to the skills you'll have picked up and honed during multiplayer matches. In no way is the game lacking strategic prowess. It is a very strategically-minded game. It's more than a little deceptive when you look at the game and see the pretty and basic graphics, then discover the brutal strategy and depth within the gameplay.

Darwinia+ had one major issue which I touched on earlier. The camera controls in Darwinia became a problem. It seems like they had a very specific path in mind that they wanted you, the player, to follow. This is weird in such an open game. It felt like I was being punished for going around problems, by not being able to see in front of me. Firing blindly and launching grenades seemed to be the best bet. I did not recall having this issue before. With this one point aside, I could tell no difference between my first interactions with the world of Darwinia and this one. I have to point out that I loved the homage to their game Defcon, inside of Multiwinia. When you receive the Nuke power up to use, it will be delivered via colored subs that look like the ones in Defcon.

The best way to enjoy Darwinia+ is to take both pieces and accept them as being different parts of the same world. Play through Darwinia and enjoy saving them from the Virii. Then, march them into battle against your opponents. I am glad that I have a more simplified and streamlined way to play my friends in Multiwinia through Xbox Live. The price point is 1200 MSP, and that makes it easy to pick up. It is well worth every point you spend on it. I am looking forward to new content being released for both of these games. The original game came with a map editor, and I can see something like that being used here, to create even more diversity and re-playability. Personally, I would like to see the further evolution of the Darwinians.