UFOlocaust

Posts Tagged ‘tower defense’

UFOlocaust

Tanya Dracolakis | Jan 17, 2012 Games

User rating:

(5 votes, average: 2.80 out of 5)

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UFOlocaust (0.99$) by Priware Entertainment S.L

Available on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

What’s in a name? A tower defense game by any other name would be just as fun to play. Well, UFOlocaust is not the best of the bunch, but it’s not the most boring either. Your mission: protect the anxious, humanoid masses from alien abduction. Seems easy enough, and in some cases it is. The graphics are pretty cool, as are the visual themes. You are started off with the basics which consist of plasma-collecting machinery and offensive weapons. The more points you gather, the more weapons you can buy in the Laboratory. But there are a few facets where the game is lacking.

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Tags: Aliens, Games, tower defense

App Sale: Sentinel: Mars Defense

Michael (Admin) | Feb 19, 2010 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating:

(4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Sentinel: Mars Defense is on sale for free – normally $.99-$1.99

Sentinel goes on sale every once in a while, and if you like arcade/tower defense games you gotta get this! Sure, Origin8 has released a newer version of Sentinel that has yet to go on sale for free, but this older game can still hold its own.

iTunes Link – Sentinel: Mars Defense

Tags: tower defense

App Sale: Sentinel: Mars Defense

Michael (Admin) | Dec 11, 2009 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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Sentinel: Mars Defense is on sale for free – normally $.99-$1.99

Tower defense fans, if you don’t have at least one Sentinel game on your iPhone then you’re a huge loser! Chris J. loved the original Sentinel, Swain had high praise for Sentinel 2: Earth Defense, and I’ve just spent the last 90 minutes or so murdering throngs of aliens in Sentinel: Mars Defense which I think is really the original Sentinel but with a fancier name.

The graphics are awesome, there are lots of gun upgrades, and even though some users have criticized this game for being a sort of “preview” for Sentinel 2 it’s still very much worth playing. Origin8′s Sentinel series definitely qualifies in the category of top-shelf game development and now is the time to get this title if you don’t already have it.

iTunes Link – Sentinel: Mars Defense

Die, you alien bastards!!

Tags: arcade, td, tower defense

App Sale: Major Warhead

Michael (Admin) | Nov 18, 2009 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating:

(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Major Warhead is currently on sale for free – normally $.99

This quasi-tower-defense game is kind of funny in a very politically incorrect way… hordes of bad guys are storming your base and you need to use cannons and an Apache helicopter to kill ‘em before they take you down. Graphics are pretty good and the sound… well it’s funny if you’re not from the Middle East. If you are, then I suspect it might make you mad when the little suicide bombers come out with their “lalalalalalalala” battle cry. Or not? I dunno, watch the video and judge for yourself.

I tried to find out from Drillbit Studios when the sale ends but their email address is bouncing back and their website’s contact form isn’t working, so if you want this game I guess you’ll just have to hurry up and get it.

iTunes Link – Major Warhead

Tags: $.99, tower defense

Sentinel 2: Earth Defense

Swain Valasek | Jul 5, 2009 Games

User rating:

(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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Sentinel 2: Earth Defense from Origin8 is the sequel to the much-acclaimed Sentinel, now called now called Sentinel: Mars Defense and originally reviewed by Chris J here (let’s just call them S1 and S2 hereafter). The story goes that despite your valiant efforts defending the Mars mining colony you ultimately failed, the base was completely overrun, everyone died and now the aliens have their belligerent eyes fixed on another target…Earth. Pushing aside your prior job performance, top brass has again entrusted you with the job of defending a planet…just this time it’s your own (no pressure). You’ve got a little something extra to bring to the party this time though in the form of 4 orbital attacks from the spaceship Sentinel, 2 new barrier types and 1 new drone (more on this later). Add 4 maps, sprinkle in a new boss alien plus a new mission mode and you have yourself a sequel.

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Tags: $2.99, Swain Valasek, td, tower defense

Sweetwater Defense

Swain Valasek | Jun 19, 2009 Games

User rating:

(5 votes, average: 3.80 out of 5)

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Proving that you simply can’t have too much of a good thing, here comes Sweetwater Defense from Werebear Games. This is a TD or tower defense game of the fixed path variety but there’s enough cool stuff here to allow this game to stand out and stake its own claim in the not-so-wild-anymore frontier of this category in the app store. There’s no backstory to bother with; just know that there are pirate fleets (ARRRRR) and monsters threatening your coast and you have to build up defenses in an attempt to send ‘em all down to Davy Jones’ locker. When you start the game you’re presented with a large, scrollable map showing all the locations you can play, divided into easy, med and hard levels and there’s about 25 unique maps in all. Your defenses consist of 7 towers and you face 6 different enemy ships and 5 unique bosses. The sound and music in this game are very well done; the BGM in particular is extremely hip and though contemporary enough to actually be out of place for the game’s setting, I found it to be quite awesome and moody. The fully 3D graphics are definitely some of the nicest you’ll see on the iPhone. Lots of environmental detail, stunning water effects, rain even…good stuff. The enemy ships and bosses were given a particularly high level of attention as for example, each ship has 2 unique sinking animations plus a special one for what I can only describe as the ‘penultimate death blow’ where a ship will notably shake and wobble when it’s just about to be sunk; really nice touch. Each tower changes graphically with each upgrade which is always a point of contention with TD fans. A rare feature but one that I think will catch on is that you can manually specify a target per tower if the auto-targeting just isn’t quite meshing with your strategy.

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Tags: $3.99, Swain Valasek, tower defense

Scoop: Dungeon Defense New Content Preview!

Swain Valasek | Apr 9, 2009 Games

User rating:

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Note my original review is located here if you need to catch up on what this great game is all about.

Lucky me. For the last couple days I’ve had the pleasure of running a preview copy of the impending Dungeon Defense update through its paces. This update adds several gameplay tweaks plus 1 major chunk of content: a new map called Blood-Orb! Among other things, it hints at the cool story that will be unfolding regarding one aptly named and highly evil Dungeon King…

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Tags: dungeon defense, Swain Valasek, td, tower defense

App Sale: Sentinel

Michael (Admin) | Apr 1, 2009 App Sale Alert

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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$4.99 $2.99 until 04/05/2009: Sentinel

Sentinel is a kickass tower defense game that normally goes for $4.99. Chris J. reviewed it about a month ago and loved it, and for the next few days you can get it for a couple bucks less!

Also on sale (FREE!) is Sounds real, a collection of high quality sound effects for your podcast or whatever else you’re working on.

Tags: iPhone apps on sale, tower defense

Dungeon Defense Crypt Edition

Swain Valasek | Mar 25, 2009 Games

User rating:

(28 votes, average: 3.11 out of 5)

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Out of virtually nowhere comes Dungeon Defense (DD hereafter) from InMotion Software LLC to hit me upside the head with a frozen soda. Just when I thought the tower defense genre was tapped like an empty keg, once again a wily developer has found a way to revitalize, innovate and rise above the glut in the app store. Call me cliche but this is TD with a genuine (pronounced gen-YOO-EIN) twist. Yes, the overall goal of the game is still to prevent baddies from traversing a set path but when it comes to the execution of that goal, all bets are off as DD zooms on ahead of the pack. There’s actually no backstory at all, just know ye that under your command is an evil skeleton army hell-bent on protecting its dungeon’s treasure horde and mighty Dungeon King from a steady stream of pesky heroes who lust for what you probably stole from them in the first place (but I digress).

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Tags: $2.99, dungeon defense, Swain Valasek, tower defense

Antivirus

Swain Valasek | Feb 11, 2009 Games

User rating:

(7 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)

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The genre known as ‘tower defense’ has been enjoying great success on the iPhone. Just have a look at Mote-M, Tap Defense, 7 Cities TD, The Creeps or the absolutely essential Fieldrunners if you need proof. For the unfamiliar, classic TD gameplay in a nutshell starts with a static playing field and a pathway. Enemies enter the screen at a set point, follow the path and try to exit. Some variations let the player create this path with the defenses themselves, add multiple pathways and spawn points and so on. So then, if enough of them exit, you lose. Since you don’t want that, your job is to strategically place defenses to prevent the bad guys from exiting. The addictive hook comes from trying to find that perfect strategy that gets you into a position of supreme power where you can cruise into the deeper levels of the game and onward to ultimate victory. Where the various TD games differentiate themselves is in the production values, themes and how wildly creative they can make the defenses. The latest entry into this category is Antivirus from Dead Rat Games.

Antivirus (AV hereafter) wraps this core gameplay around a cyber-attack theme where you have to protect your CPU from miscreants like malware, spyware and ‘phish’ (10 total enemy types). The game’s currency is units of battery power and this allows you to ‘purchase’ the various defenses. AV introduces a play mechanic I’ve not yet seen where the invading enemies can actually attack, disable and even destroy your defenses. The game begins with a simple map and 1 pathway (2 other maps are available on the harder difficulty settings). Baddies enter at the top and try to exit at the bottom. As long as you have units of battery power you will survive but each enemy that exits slurps 1 battery unit and once you hit zero the next exit is your last. You only generate 1 new battery unit per wave so you have to be very frugal until you can build up a supply of backup batteries which boost your unit production by 1 apiece (every 5th turn). Defenses at your disposal are the familiar gamut of lasers, rockets and long-range snipers (10 defenses total). Another cool feature is 2 defense types can be placed directly in the path of enemies to slow them down or cause damage. All defenses have computer-jargon names in keeping with the theme of cyberspace attacks and all are upgradeable in key stats like damage, range and fire rate. Another thoughtful feature is the ability to tell certain defenses to target the lead or nearest enemy. The game’s UI is easy to navigate and works quite well.

Before moving to gripes and suggestions, it’s important to note this is the 1.0 release of a game from a small indie developer so some slack is in order if it’s a little rough around the edges (which I’ve tried to do through numerous rewrites of this review) while remaining as objective as possible. I emailed most of the stuff below to the dev and he was very cool and responsive to everything and expects to have fixes and new features in the 1.1 release due very soon. So without further adieu…

A personal gripe is the enemies often look more biological than cyber to the point where if the game told me to ’keep the nasty virus cells from invading the patient’s lung’ I’d probably have bought the story. I guess what I’m saying is I’d like to see the cyberattack theme fleshed out in more detail overall. The sound fx are decent and gfx crisp (though bland for the defenses) but there is no animation. I don’t need a Pixar render farm mind you but I’d like to at least see enemies (the ones that have a discernible front anyway) rotate to point in the cardinal direction they’re moving. Second gripe is the ingame documentation is inadequate as you’re given no info on how any of the defenses work and only the briefest overview of everything else. There is an ingame help system in the form of popups (which can be disabled) at the beginning of each wave but the irony here is the only way to get to successive levels to see this info is to understand how to play the game in the first place. The DRG website does have a tips page describing what the defenses do but even this is a bit lacking. It still took a good bit of trial and error to figure stuff out (especially how the whole battery thing works). The upside here is the dev informed me that a 2nd page of instructions will be added soon. Also in the review version you can’t save your game and if a call comes in the app resets. Further, there’s no onscreen indication of the ugpraded status of your defenses nor a graphic change. On a lesser note, the game didn’t crash though graphic anomalies flashed very briefly and infrequently; nothing game-impacting though.

The release version has a few bugs (or semi-bugs):

It’s possible to wallpaper the map with non-functional defenses under a certain condition. Fortunately it’s a cosmetic bug and gameplay isn’t impacted (should be fixed in 1.1)
You can tap the top of the screen to bring up your iPhone status bar (which is a cool feature yay) but I could never get it to go away again, boo (should be tweaked in 1.1).

Not a bug but a bad feature IMO is if you have zero battery units you can’t look at any defense’s upgrade menu, even just to view stats or change the fire mode, which should always be available. This is intentional per the dev but it’s definitely counter-intuitive and not very logical. I hope this is changed in a future release.

The DRG website mentions the main features of the coming 1.1 release:

Savegame
Scoreboard
Performance tweaks for better framerates
Couple more maps

So what we have here is a very playable tower defense game with a good twist and comfortable interface that captures the spirit of TD and is fun and addictive, all at a good price. Interestingly though, the DRG website states they intend to raise the price after an introductory period. Based on what’s planned in the next release, v1.1 will go a long way toward adding value to this game but if the price indeed rises out of the impulse buy range, it would be great to see a lite version so people can try it out first.

Version reviewed – 1.0

Global scoreboard – no

iTunes music supported – no

Lite version available – no

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Update 3/23/2009 – Since this review came out the developer has stayed true to their word and released 1.1 and just today 1.2. I feel an update is warranted as a vast amount of polish and content has been added to this game and the price has so far remained the same, keeping it very competitive in the app store. Folks this is no Fieldrunners/Sentinel/7 Cities TD but it’s absolutely worth a look for what is now a very solid, polished, full-featured tower defense game. Very notably still missing however is save/resume (though incoming calls are now handled properly) so that stands out as a major feature that needs to happen before you’d call this game done.

Here’s the list of updates in 1.1: