Crystal Defenders

Review of new TD game Crystal Defenders.

Available Platforms: Iphone Touch, Xbox 360 Live Arcade, Wii Ware, Playstation Online. Yes I know... no web version. booo They should at least made a download trial version for all of us PC gamers.

What is Crystal Defenders? Final Fantasy meets Tower Defense!
I may be biased in this review as I'm a HUGE final fantasy fan... and I think you can figure out how much of a fan I am of Tower Defense Games. So you can imagine I had high expectations... although my joy of the simple existence of this game likely balanced things out.

I started by playing the demo on Xbox 360's Live Arcade. The demo consists of 1 map in World 1. (Full version has 3 Worlds with 4 maps in each) And after easily beating the 50 levels it threw at me, I went ahead and purchased the full version.

Here are some screen shots of Crystal Defenders.















First thing I noticed after purchasing the game is damn the difficulty shoots up quickly. I can see a lot of new/rookie TD gamers giving up on the very next map they throw at you. But after losing and repeating a few times you come to learn your towers(in this game your characters) abilities and taking advantage of special characters like the Thief who doubles your cash earned when near a defeated enemy.

After completing World 1, I went on to W.2 that gives you the use of Crystals which can increase a characters damage, speed, or range. This makes things interesting as you now have to take a different strategy of using less towers/characters but powering them up as much as you can. At least that's what worked for me.

I'm now at the 4th stage of W.2 and its mega tough with walls that block your towers/characters missile(archer/magic) attacks. Hopefully I will solve the last map on W.2 and move onto W.3 which is described as "Advanced maps difficult for even the most experienced players" (I'm messing up, but something along those lines lol)

Visuals are really cool, with a multitude of unique characters, enemies, and even a few Summons with animation. Though it could have been higher res. especially on an HD big screen where some enemies look they they were scaled up.

The music and SFX are decent but can get annoying when your replaying a difficult map for the Nth time. I've been turning it down while I play.

Overall great game. Highly recommended
9/10 TowerOfDefense Stars

Still loving TD Games

Wow its been a long time since I've made a new post.

My full time job of running Gold Sun Games has been taking up most of my time in the past few months. And I'm glad to report things are going well on that front, with a sequel to our first successful game Megaplex Madness coming out soon.

But don't worry I haven't lost my passion of Tower Defense Games. I'm still updating the Tower of Defense site with 1 or 2 new games every 2 weeks. That depends a lot on how many TD games have been released during that time. As I've noticed the number of new TD games coming out has been slowing down recently. But I'll still do my best to sift through the "inter-web" looking for free addictive little castle defense/escape the path games for your benefit. :)

Apple Defender Try 1

Great simple addictive Tower Defense game: Apple Defender

Check my attempt using a rocket strategy at beating it.

Part 1:


Part 2:

Desktop TD The 100 Attempt 1

Desktop Tower Defense TD

I can see a few mistakes that I can improve on but still happy with how far I made in the incredibly hard "The 100" challenge.

The 100 Video Attempt #1 part 1



The 100 Video Attempt #1 part 2


The 100 Video Attempt #1 part 3


The 100 Video Attempt #1 part 4

World War Tower Defense review

DukesBox asked me to review their first Tower Defense game World War Tower Defense.

Gameplay Summary:
The game is similar to the very popular Desktop Tower Defense in how you must create a maze to make your enemies travel the most distance and hopefully perish before reaching the 2 exits to the right and bottom of the screen.

Pros:
1- A good number of weapons to choose from.
2- Unique with their random entrance points.
3- Lots of different enemy graphics.

Cons:
1- Lacks game modes / features.
2- Weapons firing seem to miss a lot. Enemies travel faster than turrets can rotate Ex: Fire Cannon.
3- Does not stick with the World War theme through out the game. I didn't know the Axis or the Allies had developed Frost and Smash technologies.
4- No Pause, Menu, or skip/advance round button to click on.

Overall decent. But they could of added a few more unique elements/features and done a lot more with the World War theme.
Check it out for yourself World War Tower Defense and let me know if I was bang on or dead wrong.

Desktop TD Triumph pt.2

Looking back at my older blog posts of how I struggled to complete Desktop TD on medium kinda makes me think of how much I sucked. But I guess that's the beauty of this game. It is balanced just right that you will enjoy the game from you first time until your last.

I've beaten Desktop TD on hard a few times now. Its quite simple at this point. My latest self imposed challenge has been to complete hard without losing a single heart.
My best so far is finishing with 18 of 20 hearts.
"The 100" is great fun as well. I can't remember exactly what round (70's I think) I survived until I but I remember I scored over 8000 points. yey.
This challenge mode can't really be beaten can it? Anyone ever come close?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

How does this title apply to Tower Defense games?
Well let me tell you.

The title is a perfect description of the quality of TD games out there.
I've played through many TD games, trust me. I've played more than one normal person should in a life time.

The good: There are only around 10-15 TD games out right now worthy of this category. And you probably know most of them if your a fan. Desktop TD, Vector TD, VR Defender Y3K, Xeno Tactic 1, etc. When you get into these games they make your palms sweat and your heart race hoping that you can survive one more enemy wave so you can buy that upgrade you've had your eye on.

The Bad: Here you will find a lot of games that tried to be "good" but just didn't make it. They often look great but play badly. Not enough time and effort was put into balancing the difficulty, game play, and mechanics. Making for either a very mundane boring progression, or the opposite which is a battle that starts and ends knowing its completely hopeless.

The Ugly: Here you have the bottom feeders. Not really worth being associated with the others, but just get thrown together by association. Here its usually a toss up as to what's worse between the graphics, game play, or lack of anything unique or creative.

Thankfully "The Good" make up for the rest.
www.TowerOfDefense.com