STG's

 I have already played Kingdom Rush: Vengeance on Android, but now I got it on PC. It is, as one would assume, pretty much the same. But graphics are much better in QuadHD. Pretty nice so far, although pretty the same thing as the other Kingdom Rush. I have played all of them, and they are pretty nice TD games, without any revolutionary additions, but well executed. I particularly like the references to movies in both of them, as well as the clickable scenary. In one case, you could even disable some of the enemies if you solved a "puzzle". I do like that this one has no shop, though. Grinding to get gems is very, very annoying.

 Kingdom Rush is a tower defense game. I recently played Kingdom Rush: Frontiers on the PC and Android, and saw this one was free in Google Play Pass, so I decided to try it out. It is pretty good, although the other entries do have some nice extras. Still, a solid game, nice graphics, with pretty much all of the good ideas of the others.

 Creeper World 4 is a Tower Defense (TD) game, in which you have to destroy a multiplying liquid before it destroys you (basically). When I saw there was a new version, I knew I was going to get it. I really like Creeper World 3 (74h played), and this one is very similar, so far. The only real difference is that this time it is 3D. I thought it might ruin everything, but it works pretty well.  I'd like the zoom to not rotate the view, though. Fairly fun so far, but I imagine it'd be harder for people not used on how things work in the series - the tutorial is a bit weak. As usual, there is plenty of variety in the levels. Also, there are plenty of user made levels, which can include completely new units. Overall, strongly recommended for TD fans.

 Kingdom Rush Vengeance is a tower defense game. It relies heavily on use of a hero and powers. Levels are extremely slow, with no way to speed them up. Graphics are great, with many details and levels that have non-linear paths that have enemies popping up from different places. There are many upgrades - for towers, powers and heroes, and many unlockable powers and heroes. Unfortunately, most of this seem to lead to paid content (although I think everything is unlockable by hard work, too). At least there are plenty of tactical options. Sound is pretty bad - music is super soft (and can't be adjusted), and characters talk constantly, in very annoying clips that keep repeating. I'd just turn the sound off, but then I'd miss some warnings. Overall, pretty good for the pretty low price.

 Kingdom Rush Frontiers is a tower defense (TD) game. It follows most of the formulas, expect for having a tower that dispenses soldiers, and a power that calls soldier (yes, I've seen it before, but it is not that common). It also has a hero. Graphics are acceptable. I had some difficulty getting it to display properly in QHD, but full screen mode solved it. There are heroes you can select, and upgrade, as well as upgrades for your towers and powers. That should give you a lot of tactical options. The only problem it has, is having no speed up mode. That makes it feel pretty slow at times. Overall, pretty nice, specially on sale. Update 04/Jan/2021: I have "finished" the game. There is a little bit of a grind, as you need to run through levels more than once to get max stars, and thus get the upgrades to the later levels. One unusual thing is that after you end the game and get credits, you get a few extra, completely different, levels. Art seems a little weaker, though....

 This is an Early Access game. I just got Age of Defense, a tower defense (TD) game. It was very, very cheap (about US$1.5 after the sale and exchange rates), and I like another game from the same publisher, another TD, Warstone TD. A super annoying thing is that they decided to use just little ideograms, instead of text, in the interface. You can figure out what most things say, but I really, really hate it. I guess this is one way to save on localization. Art is OK, and the gameplay has the same problem as Warstone - it feels very, very slow. Also, the upgrade UI has terrible contrast when disabled. There is a lot of user intervation - you have to use little traps to get extra enemies, as well as fireballs. Of course, there are towers, with different characteristics, as all TD games. Not many so far. Overall, I don't really like it, but I'm hopeful that it will get better. Can't complain about the price, though.

OTTTD is a Tower Defense (TD) game. I played the demo only. The main twist between OTTTD and generic TD is that you have heroes, which you have to command around the battlefield. It starts with an engineer (who can fix towers) and continues with a soldier, sniper, etc. You can not only get them general upgrades from a large skill tower, but also buy armor and weapons upgrades. Towers are more or less the usual types - cannons, rockets, precision, stunners, etc. Overall, I think the towers upgrade should be clearer in-game, and sometimes I felt the interface to be clumsy (possibly from its mobile game origins?). Gameplay was almost good enough to make it great, but in the end it was just midly entertaining for me.

Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal is a tower defense game. It has 90s style graphics, that go somewhere from retro to slight embarrassing. However, it probably is THE BEST TOWER DEFENSE GAME I have ever played. Seriously, I can't remember enjoying any TD game anywhere near this, and I played a ton of them. The basic "monster" is quite a bit different than the usual fare. It is just a blue mass that keeps being generated from some points in the map. It will eventually find its way to your base (and probably much sooner than you'd think reasonable). Your mission is to build up to creeper generators and destroy them. There are plenty of weapons, shields, a power system that uses flat surfaces (bringing Perimeter to mind, of course). Landscape features are very important, and you have a terraforming tool (called TERP) that can have huge effects. You can make walls, make mountains plain, and make bridges into the creeper sea. Power is a huge deal. You have the re...

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...

Anomaly 2 is mostly a reverse Tower Defense (TD) game. That is, you pick the attackers and go at the towers. The story of the game takes place a few years after the initial alien attack on Anomaly: Warzone Earth  . I didn't play all the way through, but apparently at the end we win. But then they come back on force and take over the whole planet, expect for a few survivors. As the game starts, the survivor group is trying to get the plans to a superweapon. The main difference of this game is that many of your units can morph for two different versions - one with more range and another that is better for close combat. For example, one form might have a long range artillery that only shoots in a near straight line, and the other rockets with a 360 degrees turret. That greatly adds to the strategy you need during the game. Also, there seems to be much more towers popping in the middle of the action - so you will choose new paths in the tactical view much more. As usual, your...

Super Sanctum TD is a retro style Tower Defense game, based on Sanctum (which Sanctum 2 ad copy calls the first FPS Tower Defense hybrid, even when the first called itself one of the first...). Frankly, I wasn't planning on buying it, but it was free when you got Sanctum 2 on pre-order, and it was so cheap I couldn't resist. Basically, you get a 3D top/side view of the level. It probably would be easier to view on a real top-view, but then it'd look more like a 2D game. Graphics and sound are fairly OK for a retro game. For some reason 1024x768 seems to be the only resolution - this is tiny on a full HD monitor and quite annoying. Music is just repetitive and bound to irritate anyone after a few minutes. Gameplay is almost OK. You place towers and upgrades, as usual for TD. You also get some selectable powers that can be used directly, such as causing explosions (on a place or on the whole field) or teleporting enemies back to the start. There are a few nice str...

Cubemen 2 is a retro looking 3D strategy game. You have a bunch of towers - excuse me, units - that you can send anywhere in the play field. You get the usual types - pistol, flame, ice, mortar, laser, and a couple of unusual ones - blockers and mines. Action on campaigns is pretty much standard TD (tower defense) stuff - waves of enemies of various types. Several of the enemy types are quite similar from a distance. I'm not a fan of the camera style used on the game, and often found the view annoying. Gameplay was mostly boring to me too, and often I was just waiting for things to end (you can control the speed, but I felt this way even on fast mode). Music is repetitive after the first few minutes. Overall, I didn't like it and don't recommend it.

The White Laboratory is an spectacular abstract tower defense (TD) game. It is very different from any other TD game I have ever seen. The abstract enemies keep coming to your pyramid - cubes, spheres, cilinders, prisms and wheels. Every once in a while, one of them will turn white instead of getting destroyed. When that happens, you can use it yourself. Cubes are the structure, spheres fire pellets. Cilinders rotate the cubes so that the spheres fire faster. Prisms work as lasers. To make your towers, you just drag the pieces into place. I'd say this is (and being very hard to manipulate the view) is the biggest weakness in the game, as pieces sometimes just won't lock where you want to. It is not too bad, but it is irritating. The game pauses automatically in this mode, which is a big deal as you can't (at least I don't know how) move the whole tower - just a piece at a time. As you can see in the second picture, the levels can get pretty intense. Overa...

FieldRunners is a tower defense game. And for various reasons, it is one of the worst I have ever played as a download (probably some flash-based ones beat it). The graphics are nice. Given the existence of several  high quality 3D tower defense games, I find their statement of "visually stunning" to be simply absurd. The music is incredibly annoying after a couple of minutes. And the gameplay is just terrible. There is basically no introduction - just a "your enemies will come from here", there are your towers (not actually explaining anything about them, of course - just pointing to the 4 icons). There are tower definitions, but only on the help, which is only available from the main screen instead of the game settings screen. Also, I can't help but think that the first time you play you could just show the help or the least have a button that takes you there. The enemies are repetitive and it is too easy to keep going with more and more waves till the...

iBomber Pacific Defense is a Tower Defense(TD) game, and the sequel to iBomber Defense (which I reviewed previously). The game has adequate graphics and somewhat annoying sounds. What surprised me was how much better the gameplay is compared to the previous version. I don't know if the demo of the previous version stopped too soon, but this new version is pretty good. It has an adequate mix of towers - machine guns, cannons, rockets, air, flame towers, bombs, radar, etc. Bombs are interesting in the sense that they can be used against enemies anywhere, as well as against secondary objectives that have to be destroyed. Radar is now becoming common in TD, and increases the range of surrounding towers - but I think the range increase is too little before upgrades. Of course, towers can be upgraded. You can also use Dig In for some towers and improve defense, but at the cost of limited aiming - which you can change manually when needed. You also have points from each battl...

I just tried the new (on Steam) demo of another TD (Tower Defense) game, iBomber Defense. There are a number of apparently interesting features on the full game feature list, but unfortunately they don't make an appearance at the demo. The demo consists of two levels, one at land and another at sea (which is a nice, but overall meaningless change from the TD norm). The levels have a few (way too few) generic enemies and a couple of tower types that you can place and upgrade. That is pretty much it. You have a point at the beginning of each round that you can use to increase to amount of times a tower can be upgraded, and the towers can be damaged - which is sadly lacking on many tower games. But all that means is that you have to constantly watch for damage and click to pay for repairs. As far as I can see, nothing more worth mentioning. The graphics are ok, and the music is bearable, but the gameplay is so boring and uninteresting that I see no reason you should even try i...