Defence Grid: The Awakening
Platform: PC, Xbox 360
Publisher: Hidden Path
FingerSports Rating: 3/5
Anyone who’s ever screwed around in the world of flash games knows there are a LOT of ‘defence’ games out there; from the venerable ‘Desktop Turret Defence’ to ‘Gemcraft’ and their hundreds of illegitimate spawn.
The basic premise is that waves of monsters/soldiers/aliens/generic enemy or geometric shapes will try to kill you in some nefarious way, and you have to construct a defensive path for them to walk down whilst being shot. The trick is to find the right combo of towers to form the longest ‘maze’ for the enemies, whilst dealing the most damage. Now I like these games, some of them are way too easy and some kick you all over the place before you work out a reasonable strategy.
‘Defence Grid: The Awakening’ takes this concept and makes it into a more polished, more marketable 3D indie title. Firstly, lets get this out of the way, the game is around the £7 mark. So it’s not going to compete with Modern Warfare 2 for your spare time, but it might make you giggle for an evening or two.
The game lays out a series of well built and interesting maps that you build rather swish little turrets on and shoot the really quite nicely modelled baddies till they explode. The sound is nothing to write home about, but during the campaign mode there’s a very British man doing the narration/tutorial, and he’s actually quite funny. The humour is relatively dark and he won’t stop going on about how much he misses raspberries. Seriously, at one point the talky AI man asks you to eat berries and describe the sensation to him. Odd fellow, but entertaining.
Visually, the game is really pleasing (for less than a tenner). Explosions and lasers, fling stuff and complex-looking twisting levels with decent texture quality. The animation is surprisingly nice, things stomp and chain-guns spin… you know what I mean. The interface is odd at first, (after all, it was designed for a control pad) but easy to get used to. Babble aside, the game looks and handles like they could have charged more-not that I’m complaining.
The game starts off as you would expect, insultingly easy – but the difficulty curve is steep. Some of the levels require serious examination and planning to set up your maze, the multi-layered ones are a bastard. The turrets are quite well balanced, (although the AA weapons are WAY too powerful, and there are levels you can complete by just spamming cannons.) and the alien enemies come in an amusing variety of shapes and flavours. The single player is a nice build up for the challenge maps (although the last few levels of the single player are a nice challenge – good to see a game that’s not afraid to beat you. Repeatedly. With a stick.) and the challenge modes and maps add a decent lease of life into the game. Mind you, I spent the best part of a month playing Dolphin Olympics 2 so maybe I’m not the best judge of re-playability…
Right, is it worth your cash? It Depends just how much do you need seven quid?
If you enjoy little games that will make you think, and if you’ve ever enjoyed a ‘turret defence’ style game – this really is well worth it. If you’ve never played a defence game, then this simple set of instructions will tell you if you enjoy Defence Grid.
1. Buy it and see.
2. Go online and play a few flash defence games for free.
Now you know if you will like the game.
I’ve been having great fun with it, for it’s genre it’s a masterpiece. The DLC is so cheap it’s not worth worrying about, and I’m glad I took a chance on a cheapo game.
DukesOfDevon
Right, I’ve just bought ‘Sol Survivor’ and played it for several hours, the two games are similar in that they’re defence titles, but Sol Survivor is newer. And terrible. Curse you and your cheap titles steam!