STG's

At a first look,  Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten looks like another Flash TD game. The graphics (VERY retro), sound and the fact that it is written in Flash all contribute to this impression. However, the game has a very nice, well told story and the TD elements have plenty of room for different tactics and strategies. TD is done with fighters you either recruit automatically on the story or for scrap (the game's credits) on towns. That alone is a major element as they are expensive and get more so with each added recruit. Types are berserks (sword fighters), archers, healers, knights (sword fighters with heavy armor and that pierce enemy armor), ice mages and dragons. You place them in the maze, as usual. However, each one has a small cost in Psi (power units that you get on the start, as well as for killing enemies), so you can't just hire lots of them without thinking. Each kind of unit has different powers that are only available at different upgrades...

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a retro turn based dungeon crawler - in space. Basically you go through a large alien base, killing minor pest and annoying enemies, progressing your character, finding loot and dying - a lot. The Pit is a very, very hard game, even on the easy level. It is very easy to get killed, and it must be one of the stingiest games I've seen on loot. You get tiny amounts, and many of the things you will get at the start can only be used for crafting. There are also mods spread around, both for your guns and body. They are color coded and can have both good and bad effects, though. The tutorial is very adequate, and the shooting mechanics are pretty good (choose target with cursor, then fire, or use auto fire). Graphics are really retro - something you'd see on the late 90s at most. It is, however, very adequate for the game. I understand that it is based on Sword of the Stars and that it has the same characters. I never played any games in the fr...