In the quest for a game that I could enjoy in-between watching my EVE Online sell/buy orders and doing work I came upon Defence Grid: The Awakening which so happened to be 50% off on Steam at the time of writing this.
As one can probably gleam from the title it’s a defence game more specificly a highly addictive Tower Defence game.
The premise is simple: to defend a group of power cores from aliens of varying types that run the gauntlet through your barrier of towers in waves, these waves get harder and more numerous as the game progresses.
Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run...
Enemies come in all shapes and sizes from tiny swarming bugs, to flying and cloaky bugs who can only be shot at by towers point blank.
So many towers, so little time...
The towers also come in various flavors from the simple machine gun tower to cluster bomb towers.
HMS Dreadnought would be proud
Each tower has its strengths and weaknesses for example the concussion towers drop cluster bombs over a small area and are extremely effective against swarming aliens but are completely inadequate against single tough units, conversely towers such as the Cannon towers deal massive damage to single units but their rate of fire does not allow them to effectively counter aliens that swarm.
(Left to right) Dakka, More Dakka, Even More Dakka
The towers are upgradeable up to two times each upgrade increases firepower, range and rate of fire boosting their effectiveness each time, the towers upon upgrade redeploy with a bigger gun or even more guns (‘More Dakka‘) and are colour coded green (level 1), yellow (level 2) and red (level 3).
Enlighten the Xenos today!
For those who are familiar with Tower Defence games they tend to feature a super weapon capable of saving the player when he/she gets overwhelmed usually in the form of a bomb: Defense Grid gives the player a giant laser satellite that shows the Xenos the light of god in a limited area.
As previously stated the game is very simple: aliens attack your base and you have to defend it with a series of defensive towers, in the default story mode your power cores that are stolen can be returned to your base providing you kill the alien running away with it at which point the alien will drop its prize and the core will slowly float back to its rightful place.
Screamin' Eagles!
The maps make ingenious use of height opening up new tactics such as perching towers up higher so that they can rain shells on the enemy below while also covering their own level, other design features are multiple entry/exit points for aliens, multiple power core locations and attack paths that can be ‘shaped’ by blocking them with towers.
Make for interesting game play and unlike more primitive tower defence games allows for a more expanded tactics to be used.
Do it you know you want to.
For the masochistic, challenge modes can be unlocked one of such modes is ‘Poison Core’ in which any alien that picks up a dropped power core will instantly die and the core is lost. This challenge and other challenges are available after completion of the related story mission.
The game’s visuals are pleasing to the eyes – crisp, vibrant, and conveys the game’s atmosphere and gameplay very well. The camera allows only one view direction but does let the player to zoom in right down to the heat of the action.
The audio is not bad the soundtrack plays very well with the action, and sound effects are excellent with cannons giving off a chunky ‘Bam!’ when they let loose. Unfortunately the voice acting in story mode is rather cheesy. Your AI partner speaks with a heavily stereotyped British accent with lines that only James May would utter, just will less sarcasm and ‘luxuriousness’.
When talking about it just isn't enough.
As for online features Defence Grid offers leaderboards, highscores and four DLC packs up for sale for $0.99 each which apparently includes more steam achievements and extra maps to slug it out on.
All in all Defence Grid: The Awakening was a great game it fills all the criteria for a game of this type (in my books): Addictive, simple, and entertaining.
Which Defence Grid managed to pull off with flying colours, unfortunately it was only let down by the cheesy voice acting otherwise it’s a great time waster for when you’re sick of playing soldier, taking over the world or just plain procrastinating.
Grab a copy off Steam today!
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