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!

From my inability to sleep the previous night I came up with the idea of applying Photoshop's Photomerge to stitch images other than actual photos together.
So the following day I logged onto one of my EVE toons and set out for Amarr space and ended up with this panorama at a gate not far from the Amarr system.

For the big version go here.

Enjoy!

Right so I finally got around to putting together another EVE Online wallpaper.
This time I tried recreating the paint job of the Gallente Heavy Interdictor - The Phobos.

Here's the backstory as to how it came into my possession.

I acquired this baby from one of my contacts at Roden Shipyards.
This is the original Phobos prototype.
Unlike the production model that has guns this one has been optimised for Heavy Assault Missile Launchers.
Amazing how ships like this are just sitting in hangers collecting dust :p

I did all posing and such in Garry's Mod, post production in Photoshop, and logos were re-vectored in Illustrator.

Grab the full sized version here.

Enjoy!

New wallpaper for y'all to enjoy.
This time it's the Minmatar Wreathe Industrial.

I picked her up in my travels according to the plank owners plaque on board she dates back to the Minmatar Independence wars.

On a trip around the world of EVE I docked up at a Urban Management station and saw this mothball Wreathe sitting in the docks.
Sensing an opportunity I got in contact with the owner who happen to be a fellow trader who was looking to get rid of it apparently a late relative of his passed it on to him.
But seeing as he was the owner of a several Freighters I wasn't surprised he didn't have a use for it short of reprocessing it.
Anyway he sold the boat to me for a pittance since he was almost willing to pay me to get rid of it.
After some quick restoration work on her she was ready to fly until someone found the plaque with the names of the original plank owners and commissioning date.

She dates back to the Minmatar independence wars with the Amarr, had somehow survived intact and went on to trade for the remainder of her life...

She's now on display as a memorial to the merchant convoys that travelled the void of space to deliver goods for the Minmatar resistance.

Yes, I know I'm lazy since I quoted my DeviantArt description but that's all there really is to its backstory.

For the larger version click here.

Enjoy!

Apparently the Hubble Space Telescope picked this up a week or so ago it's apparently debris from an asteroid collision which generates a comet like trail of debris behind it.
Though for those who play EVE Online and have a sharp eye it looks more like a Dramiel frigate speeding through space a ship that the Angel Cartel fields.

Dramiel

Could it be that the boffins at NASA got it wrong and what we're actually seeing is a Dramiel in space or is it just a coincidence?

Anyway you can check out the article here (Yes, I know its a bit old).

After much convincing and several million isk later.
I finally acquired a test model of the Prophecy from Khanid Innovations. Yes, the same people who designed the Damnation command ship.

When she turned up in my hanger she looked like she had seen better days. So after a few days of refitting, a new coat of paint and lots of polish she looked just like new.

And here I present to you the Khanid Innovations Prototype Prophecy in all her glory in a wallpaper.

Posed in Garry's Mod, logos vectored in Illustrator, wallpaper and composition was done in Photoshop.

Grab a copy of her here.

I've decided to make another EVE Online wallpaper but can't decide on which ship to feature.
So seeing as people are fairly enthusiastic about their ship choices I'll put forward a question and poll:

Which ship do you want to see next on a wallpaper? The powerhouse Thorax cruiser or the majestic Prophecy battlecruiser?

I'll leave this poll running until the 30th January and then the poll will close automaticly so get your votes in quick!

Edit:
If this poll turns out to be popular enough I'll make it more regular so that EVE Online players can vote for their ships.

For those of you who are low sec pirates this one's for you guys, the fourth wallpaper in the series is of the infamous Rifter.

Thukker Mix and the Minmatar government sent me a little gift in the form of a Rifter so I went ahead and took some shots of it.

The model of the Rifter was relatively small so I wanted to try some more creative posing.

I reckon it turned out a lot better than my other wallpapers thanks to the level of detail in the Rifter model itself.
The wallpaper was made in Photoshop as is all touching up, logos were made with Illustrator.

Those of you who want the up-scaled versions of the corporation logos I might upload them after I've vectored enough of them.

Hope ya'll enjoy it ya'll can download it here.

Third in my series of EVE Online minimalistic wallpapers.

This time the Minmatar Republic and the people at Core Complexion Inc were nice enough to donate a Hurricane for me to pose.

Posed in Garry's Mod in the 'white room' using the EVE Online ships pack which can be freely downloaded.

Touched up and created in Photoshop, logos were upscaled and re-vectored in Illustrator.

You can get the large version from my deviant art site here.
Enjoy!

Second in my series of EVE Online minimalist wallpapers is proudly sponsored by the Caldari State and the Ishukone corporation.

Again I went with a similar style to that of the Drake wallpaper to keep with the corporate advertisement-esk feel of my wallpapers.

The ship was posed in Garry's Mod using the EVE ships model pack which you can download off the gmod forums.

For the full sized version you can grab it from my deviantArt site here.

Enjoy!