Star Defense
| Game Name: | Star Defense |
| Platforms: | iPhone, iPod touch |
| Publisher(s): | ngmoco |
| Developer(s): | ngmoco |
| Genre(s): | Strategy |
| Release Date: | Jun 06, 2009 |
| Price: | $5.99 |
| Buy Now | |
Every other day seems like another tower defense game is being released in the App Store. Regardless of how fun this game type can be, it does become tiresome seeing clone after clone of essentially the same thing. But before you dismiss all future tower defense games as simply rehashes, you may want to give ngmoco’s Star Defense a shot.
Star Defense adds an interesting twist to the tower defense genre. Rather than playing on flat terrain you’ll defend your bunker on sphere and square shaped planets. Now at first this change of terrain may sound like a gimmick, but it actually adds more gameplay depth to Star Defense.
I'd trade in all five towers for one good can of Raid.
Due to the unique terrain of Star Defense you’ll never have a complete view of any level, this brings up some interesting problems. With multiple waves of invaders spread across the planet and such a narrow view of the battlefield, it can be challenging to spot weaknesses in your defense that would have been trivial if the terrain had been flat.
I was glad to see ngmoco didn’t go overboard with Star Defense’s tower types. Rather than having 20 tower types that are slightly different, they opted to go with five tower types that are distinctly unique. It can be tempting for developers throw in as many towers as they can think of, why not, it’ll look better on the features list anyways right? Yes it would, but it could also make the game needlessly complicated sucking the fun right out.
Big Dipper meet Star Defense, Star Defense meet Big Dipper.
At the heart of Star Defense is a system of counters. Each tower deals a specific type of damage and invaders carry specific immunities. So you can never win in Star Defense by only amassing a single class of towers. There’s a lot more to Star Defense than simple counters. There’s actually lots of variables to keep in mind when playing.
For example, a pack of fast moving invaders with no damage immunity are traveling across your planet. Since the invaders carry no specific damage immunities you’re free to use any tower type to defend, in this situation reload frequency becomes key. If you choose a tower with a low reload frequency you run the risk of only hitting every other target, but with a higher reload frequency you can be sure you’ll hit every single invader that crosses your path.
Besides having solid gameplay what really ties this game together is the great 3D graphics. Being able to zoom and pan around the planet gives the game a bit of that wow factor so few games possess. Star Defense is a no brainer, the game packs tons of value for a very reasonable price, it’s definitely a safe buy in my book.
Gameplay Video
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