Yep, I’m resurrecting this old topic, but now that 110 promises EVEN more waves, it’s time to look back on the waves that are already in-game, and what better waves than the ones added in CIU
V45:
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Single Digits: Pretty fun, with generous screen real-estate. Not much more to say here.
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Double Helix: Unlike High-Speed Chase, this wave is actually doable with bombers since the chickens aren’t stupidly fast. And it also looks more visually interesting with the lanes weaving with each other. A fan of this one.
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The Trash Compactor: A mixed bag, I like the number of enemies, but hate the squeezing mechanic and the fact that the enemies come from two sides, which combined with the shrinking space makes dodging a pain.
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Shear Stress: Can’t say the name is a lie, it is pretty stressful dealing with two chunks of enemies. It’s fine but not a wave I highly respect.
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Play Both Sides: Time to say something kinda controversial, I’m not a big fan of invincible barriers. This wave isn’t too egregious with its invincible barriers tho, since it makes the decision of switching sides one that requires proper thought. It isn’t too short, nor too long, so props for getting the wave duration right.
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Tangled Mess: Without AOE weaponry, this wave is very chaotic, with numerous enemies and a large zoom. But this wave still suffers from the problem of being cheesed by Bird-flu’s, ICBM’s and such, so I can’t really call it a good wave.
V52:
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Merry-Go-Around: Basically Shear Stress except the chunks show up slower and they go around the screen. The anomaly directions make the wave awkward. Decent wave just because of the enemy density but could be better.
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Anode-Cathode: This wave is pretty underwhelming, as in, there aren’t enough enemies that show up on-screen at a time.
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Slice of Chicken Pie: Looks pretty flipping sweet, the missing sector gives you enough room to dodge, except for when minibosses, cowards, UFO’s show up. The central satellite container is cool, I guess, but it’s mainly known for having a shitton of chickens in a normal zoom wave.
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On the Radar: The wave on its own is fine, but… DEAR GOD WHY ARE TOXICS STILL ALLOWED TO SPAWN IN THIS WAVE?? I guess you could say the same for slobs, but STILL, WHY!! I cannot get over this practically guaranteed multiplayer death trap. F**k this wave because of toxics and slobs.
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Windshield Wipers: This is the start of waves where the usage of invincible barriers becomes frustrating. It is an absolute pain trying to get multikill in this wave. How do others even get a full multikill, if that’s even possible?
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Enemy Hurricane: This isn’t really ‘new’, it’s just egg cyclone, but the enemies are exposed. Since the enemies are exposed, they fire back a lot sooner, and it’s all of them, instead of the ones, the players ‘hatched’. Very chaotic due to the sheer number of enemies.
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Under Pressure: The brother of Windshield Wipers, except the barriers move from side to side instead of swinging.
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Henn Diagram: A pretty neat concept, but the intersection between the three circles is too large for one to really appreciate the Henn Diagram aspect. Since this is one of those waves which surrounds the player, missiles and clucker bombs can shred it easily. Could’ve been good with some tweaks.
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Panzer Strike: It’s my own wave, I’m not gonna review it since I’m very likely gonna have some bias towards it. Notably features Lv4 barriers
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Berserkers: Rather bland with only one type of enemy. The berserk chickens can be kinda dangerous if not dealt with properly, but they’re pretty fragile as far as chickens go.
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Go with the Flow: Middle of the road wave with decent enemy count, that’s all.
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Chicken Highway: Another wave featuring Lv4 barriers, their projectiles are surprisingly big, and the wave is actually kinda fun. The barriers are quite tough tho, so they often get left behind and disappear, to the dismay of players.
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Chequerboard Strut/Promenade: Ironically, I’d advocate for adding destructible barriers onto these waves since they’re pretty easy to destroy.
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Out of Nowhere: The name is a lie, they show up from pretty obvious portals. It’s nothing to write home about, as only a single file formation shows up from one portal at a time.
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Droid Slalom/Droid Giant Slalom: The original slalom is fine I guess, since a Security Droid exists to defend its designated line, the ‘giant’ version however is disappointing, since it has the same zoom and is basically the same, just with one food bubble replaced by another droid, both being the standard ones. Meh waves IMO
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Cloudy With a Chance of Eggs: One of my favorite waves, the large zoom size
and the sheer chaotic nature of this wave is just so appealing to me. -
Braided Assault: Good number of enemies, but a tad too long for my taste
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Ricochet: I despise this wave, since the enemies show up from every direction, but it’s also rather slow in progression, not to mention, the enemy count is rather sparse.
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Asteroids (no, really): In Ci2, they were satisfying to destroy, but in CIU and especially in high difficulty missions, the asteroids becoming f**king TANKS, and take a lot to be destroyed, making the wave boring IMO.
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Over The Rainbow: It’s a shame the proposed clouds and rainbow wave suggested by OneWingLunarian were split into two, as it would’ve looked incredible. As it’s own thing, it’s less epic due to the smaller zoom and limited space.
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Corridor Shooter: Another wave I despise, slobs with their attack are a death sentence in this wave as space is so limited. It’s PAINFUL with bombers, trying to dodge attacks. iA, can ya please make this wave 125% zoom with more room to move around. I get that its a corridor, but the current wave is borderline criminal when it comes to being bomber unfriendly.
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The Fortress: A very difficult wave with numerous chunks of enemies and the gatling/laser guns. The laser barriers make it even more challenging to dodge. Usually dodging the eggs/lasers is doable, but occasionally, one can get caught between the eggs/lasers and the other attacks. Pretty fun
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Morbius Strip: Sadly, no Morbius references here recruits. This wave is weird, the formation changes shape drastically over a single second. This makes picking off chickens challenging as one has to predict when the formation will change shape again.
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Portal Gun/Shotgun: First variant is rather mundane, it’s a constant stream of chickens, shotgun is a little more interesting but it’s still just volley after volley of chickens and eggs showing up from a portal. Guess it’s good for pecking order but not much more.
So yeah, a long list of waves. I’ll be sure to post more opinions in the future.
As always may the forks be with you all!